The title poem of this collection takes off after its epigraph of two lines of Walt Whitman, the last of which is, “And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.” No, this is not a depressing collection. That line expresses not just a silver lining, but really a triumph, as does Kendrick’s poetry, though it does not turn squeamishly from the negative. Part I is “Home Fires. Part II is Broken, Various, Inscrutable. Part III is Unasked-for-Singing – “And Luckier” fits there. Each section is tied together with “Poem for a Daughter, I, II, and III.” “Kendick’s powerful fifth collection springs from a mature poet’s reckoning with the family she was given and the family she has made, with the struggle to answer her calling as an artist, with the dangers and diminishments of age, and with her privileged place in a suffering world.” – George Ella Lyon.
Lexington, Kentucky: Accents Publishing, 2020. 69 pages. Trade paperback.