Clover
In the foliage of my life, I was honey,
something extracted, poured into another,
so when you found me
there was no resemblance
to my former self. Adept at transformation,
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The Whacking Stick
A boy with a long stick whacks the air.
What demon does he strike? -
Camaraderie of the Marvelous
In Camaraderie of the Marvelous, Dianna Henning immerses us in worlds of astonishing connections. These are poems where the marvelous occurs, when a “slivered wolf . . .” becomes a “heart’s centerpiece,” and where a summer river “spills salsa music.” In these poems, connections among people and animals and memories are all “reaching across . . .”…
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New England Farmhouse
Down from Bob Ovitt’s place, two sisters linger
at their clothesline to watch as the farmer’s two hundred
eighty-pound body is hoisted into a flatbed and then
driven in a scrawl of dust around the bend. -
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.”
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Cathedral of the Hand Review 2020
Local author Dianna Henning’s book “Cathedral of the Hand,” has received an extremely positive review by Bob Stanley. See article in the Lassen Times: https://www.lassennews.com/local-authors-book-receives-stunning–review/
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The Potato Eaters
The tea pourer’s left hand snores on her lap.
One finger strangely points to the floor
as though downward
were the only refuge for the roughly defined. -
Animal Mission
In the beginning there was promise.
We lived together in harmony, -
From the Northeast Kingdom
When the black bearskin hung from the tree
like a rug drying on the clothesline,the hunter recounted how he started an incision,
cut upward to the head,stopped at the mouth’s corners.
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Rhubarb Season
A rooster crowed at the first
strike of light, awaking the stone
child who held her own -
Search
Mother once told me my wakefulness took
up an entire floor—that’swhy I house myself in the woods. All
the tree knows of cover is moss. Allthe child in Aleppo knows of cover is run.
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Set Free
When my husband caught the trapped hummingbird
and freed it from the screened-in porch,
his big hands, a woven bird’s nest,
a few fingers opened into an escape hatch,