Wine-Dark Mother and the Trapper’s Son

Jim Churchill-Dicks’ poetry collection Wine-Dark Mother and the Trapper’s Son witnesses the explosive landscapes of fractured families with a level gaze as tender as it is reckoning. Tectonic violence jerks the ground under these poems. Recurring images of smoke, ash, volcanic eruptions, and what we see in the plumes create an ominous and contested beauty. As the collection progresses, the images begin to cohere into a larger skyscape of un-easy forgiveness.