Taxonomy of the Missing

In Taxonomy of the Missing, Lisa Lewis’ sixth collection of poetry, the past is present, finely-detailed and filtered, but never diminished by, the kind of tender regret that accrues only after decades of lived experience. I fought my miniature wars. Here are/ my relics declares the speaker of one poem, offering the only thing wisdom’s good for: self-acceptance. Here beats the rhythm of an unconfounded, ordinary heart.

Denise Duhamel says, In Taxonomy of the Missing, Lisa Lewis writes of complex women as friends, mothers, sisters, cat ladies, dog walkers, and lovers. She writes with an astute awareness of class dynamics, the earth’s peril as a result of our violence, and our violent America–past and present. These poems of witness to our troubled times are also timeless in their longing and emotional candor. Lewis’s poems sing a stinging, stunning song.

And Charles Fort adds, Lisa Lewis might be thrown by Oklahoma opponents into a headlock, but you best count on her to win by falling. You need this book on the welcome mat of your front porch. There are sad-ass poem-ballads in this book that often read like the blues. Her poems reveal the beauty and terror of gender, family, land, animals, and how we grovel for the human elixir that might save us from ourselves. In the title poem there is one line: Do you know I’m here? What is that single missing ingredient in the porridge of this poet-alchemist? I found it.