Hymnody of the Blue Heron, Poems by Kevin Hadduck

Hymnody of the Blue Heron by Kevin Hadduck is a varied collection, thematically and stylistically. The poems often employ imagery from the farmlands and wilds of Kansas or from “Nature” generally, and some explore our relationship to Nature. About half of the poems delve into love of friends, spouse, or family, lost love or tensions within love. Very many of these poems speak of failure, of body, mind, or soul, but also of hope for forgiveness, reunion, and healing.

Sample Poems by Kevin Hadduck

“Reading Kevin Hadduck’s poems stretches both the mind and body, for they span the antipodes of north and south, heaven and earth. Firmly footed in the minutiae of daily life and nature, love for human life as well as love for herons and hawks, the poems soar frequently, evoking the transcendent and the unspeakable. Poems like ‘Alleluias of the Red Tail’ take the reader from the concrete and the specific to the spiritual and intangible.”—James E. Barcus

“Kevin Hadduck knows the writer’s work of ‘stumbling among words like a child among heavy tools.’ He knows that ‘Words are not enough.’ And yet, like the very best of poets, he loiters among headstones, enters forests, walks “along the creek’s bank…littered / Now with generations of bald tires / And mud-choked washing machines” until songs of birds suddenly ‘lay siege [his] word-lack, lackluster language.’ Open this book, walk into its pages and hearken to this refreshingly honest, imaginative and reverent poetic voice that stretches lyrically across the layered landscapes of this country and its vanishing seasons. Search with Hadduck for ‘some convenient place for awe.’ Trust him when—‘beyond the dust…beyond the voice’—he declares ‘this, then, is my argument for love.’”—Gary Bouchard

ISBN-13: 978-1625491800, 96 pages, softcover

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Also by Kevin Hadduck:

A Farewell to Lent