Ice and Gaywings

Winner of the 2011 qarrtsiluni chapbook contest, Kenneth Pobo’s sensitive collection allows us an intimate entree into the woods and rural communities of northern Wisconsin, near Lake Superior, and through those places, into the poet’s life and memories. In these deceptively simple poems, he and his partner search the woods for ladyslippers, listen to loons, and drink milkshakes in a local restaurant where the walls are lined with 45s. We, the readers, find ourselves drawn deeper and deeper into a world where both grief and the potential of loss coexist with a tender and bittersweet beauty.