In her new collection, poet Connie Wanek reflects on the recent death of her mother, continues the series of Mrs. God poems that enlivened her previous collection, Consider the Lilies, and ensnares us in the kind of whimsical meandering the deeper significance of which often strikes us only after the fact. In "Tennis Lessons," for example, she relates the various instructions being given by the "pro," simple yet as difficult as Zen. The poem arrives at a hilarious conclusion: "Ideally, after the lesson I could be someone else altogether."
In another poem an old friend appears in the poet's dreams to tell her she's started smoking again—something she hadn't dared to do when she was alive.
Many of the poems focus on Wanek's mother, who loved free ball-point pens and was adept at administering medicine to her children—you could tell how well it was working by how much it hurt. There are gentle words, too, about her father, a soldier in his youth, who chose to be buried in a distant cemetery with his comrades rather than close to home, near his family. Well, it was free.
Along with the rich detail and understated humor, there's a subtlety and ease in these lines that's rare. Wanek is confident that we'll catch her drift.
Connie Wanek has lived in New Mexico and Minnesota. For a quarter century she lived in Duluth near Lake Superior, where she worked at the Duluth Public Library and restored old houses. She has two children and two grandchildren. Her most recent books are Rival Gardens: New and Selected Poems from the University of Nebraska Press, Consider the Lilies: the Mrs. God Poems, and a book of poetry for young readers, Marshmallow Clouds, co-written with Ted Kooser and published by Candlewick Books, which won the CLiPPA Award in the UK.
"The poems you'll find here are marvelously inventive, richly associative, and deeply moving. Wanek is a journeyman framing carpenter of our beautiful American language." — Ted Kooser, Poet Laureate of the United States
"How to Sing for Money is filled to the brim with life from cradle to grave. The title comes from a book Wanek found in her mother's stack of 'pristine' National Geographic magazines. Her mother really did sing for money after WWII, and much of this book was written during the last years of her mother's life. Wanek is a master metaphor maker with a wry sense of humor. Fans of Mrs. God will be delighted to find a handful of new Mrs. God poems. This is a beautiful collection; you will savor its richness." — Joyce Sutphen, Former Minnesota poet laureate
"There is a tremendous generosity here, poems given completely and not chaperoned by the giver, no strings or fingerprints. Just the baby left at the doorstep, in the basket woven of the poet's hair." — Gabrielle Herbertson, High country New Mexico teacher and guru
