The Tenderness House – New Edition
Henning has a very elegiac quality to her writing: death, crows, grief and longing. That probably could be said of most poetry, but in this case, there’s also a very subtle sense of self-ironizing awareness. For example, in “Jump-Off Joe Creek,” which examines the story behind the oddly named Oregon stream, Henning takes an inward turn: “but finally, / like Joe on the bridge, you must select / one life and hold it like flint underneath your tongue, / something made in the shape of an arrow.”