Our Foreigner

Poetry. Poems funny, stark, spot-on and utterly beautiful comprise her collection, OUR FOREIGNER, a brilliant and dark comedy. This is Betsy Sholl’s apt description for the poetry of Nance Van Winckel, one of the Northwest’s foremost poets and writers, and her latest release–from The Pacific Coast Poetry Series/Beyond Baroque Books. Van Winckel’s own relatives traveled west enduring the hardship and tests of character that confronted those who made such treks in the 1800’s. OUR FOREIGNER explores, among other conditions and anomalies, ideas of journey, progress and regress, travel both physical and psychological. A variety of voices populate this collection, speakers from the past, or bright, sassy, contemporary folks talking as if all they have to do is open their mouths and out flies poetry. They manage, these poems, to be at once plain-speaking and brainy, lucid and deeply mysterious.