Good Heart: Poems

By Deborah Keenan

Book Overview

Good Heart tells the reader what it means to have a "good heart" with all fantasies left aside. Keenan shows the reality of what a "good heart" must do to survive in the vast landscape of society, friends, and family. Kennan says, "I admit an extraordinary number of human flaws and frailties into the text---claim the ragged journey that only sometimes leads to wisdom, and too often to harsh judgement, sorrow, losses. Because I am an autobiographical, and lyric, and narrative poet, each of my books carries my personal history, and the strands of cultural and political history forward. The poems in Good Heart were written to honor some endings in my life--the end of two extremely important friendships, the end of my mom's healthy years, the end of plundering my dad's tragic choices. I wanted to reflect on, and honor and, sum up, some personal and cultural history."

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1571314156
• ISBN13: 9781571314154
• Release Date: February 2003
• Publisher: Milkweed Editions
• Length: 84 Pages
• Weight: 3.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 5.5" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

A unique collection of free-verse poetry

Good Heart is a unique collection of free-verse poetry by Deborah Keenan who deals with mature themes, wistful longing for what is lost, the eternal beacon of hope, cherished memories, and more. Good Heart is recommended as being an evocatively written and lyrically moving work. Butterfly Weed: I love this flower, how it lifts/Above the fielded meadow grass,/Sounds in dry soil, wants/No rain, needs no rain.//From the milkweed family/You makes no milk, a flower/Not made to tend anything.//How I nursed my hatred/Of orange for years, how I loathed/The yellow milkwort for being/Orange, the jack-o-lanterns/Haunting the city steps.//Then the butterfly weed/Bloomed in the first meadow I knew/And the orange blossoms touched/Something in me, touched my hatred,/My easy ways with judgment,//And I let my love for the flower/Be a small victory against all/I've hated carelessly/With great attention and pride.