The Mudra

Poetry. In Buddhism, a mudra is a symbolic gesture expressive of an inner state. To conceive of a single such gesture-the mudra-brings dramatic tension to the symbolizing act. Such a title is perfect for Kerri Sonnenberg's intelligent and graceful examination of world and language, from the lyrical fragments of the title section-"I'll spend some distance" and "the shapes we fail"-to the beautifully seen landscape of the collection's final lines: "turned fields without/color was night before roads." Both the fragment, with its suggestion of absence, and the oblique narrative, with its ghostly suggestion of a "whole," are means of expressing, as if for the first time, worlds we thought we knew. In The Mudra, Kerri Sonnenberg gives us worlds brilliant in their passing"-Paul Hoover.