The Pastor's Wife Considers Pinball

Poetry. "The Pastor's Wife, the poet's alter—or altar—ego in Nola Garrett's startling collection, tells her poet-creator 'that Nola's dreams are a troupe / of untrained monkeys.' But Garrett has in fact trained her dreams well, for the persona who 'forces me to write these poems' inspires her to triumphs of craft—her pentameters' suppleness, her free verse's tautness, her sonnets' sneakiness. These technical achievements enable her feats of sympathetic imagination, so a sestina, by beginning every end-word with 'y,' enacts the tugs of longing that plague and delight Garrett's hero. Constantly the Pastor's Wife wrestles with a God she knows so intimately she can list what he carries in his pockets ('a few centuries' change, a napkin sketch of another garden / that never fades, a Zippo lighter..., / ...an elegant key'). THE PASTOR'S WIFE CONSIDERS PINBALL tackles both the sacred and the profane, divine order and worldly chaos, by bringing all Garrett's powers of wit and feeling to the fray."—Jay Rogoff