Kirjahaku

Winner of the 2020 Blue Light Press Book AwardWe belong to each other "even in the worst day," Helga Kidder writes in her fourth collection of poems, Loving the Dead. That belonging encompasses the arcing heavens, the "bruised moon," the trilling Earth, the sometimes prideful tug of our closest relations. Growing up in Germany's Black Forest, Kidder brings "luck in my] luggage" to a new continent, with new eyes and hopes, to remind us, "You must turn on your own light." And she does, honoring both her sister's life and packing us for the luminous journey into memory's beam and vapor. About the Author Helga Kidder is a native of Germany's Black Forest region and lives in the Tennessee hills with her husband. She was awarded an MFA in Writing from Vermont College. She is co-founder of the Chattanooga Writers Guild and leads their poetry group. She has participated in workshops in San Francisco, CA, Rockvale, TN, and Auvillar, France. Her poems have been published in many journals and anthologies. She has three poetry collections, Wild Plums (2012 Finishing Line Press), Luckier than the Stars (2013 Blue Light Press), and Blackberry Winter (2016 Blue Light Press).

Helga Kidder presents a superbly human and intuitive-not an ideological or political-view of immigration, a perspective that is sorely needed for cross-cultural empathy. Poetry, her "bridge of memory," has kept her whole through the fragmentation of immigration. Kidder's poetry has enabled her to accept her double identity. She celebrates the natural world of her Tennessee home while honoring her German childhood with rich imagery and memory from her native Schwarzwald and homage to the German poet, Rilke. A wistful spirit pervades her poetry. The poem, "What We Don't Give Up" reveals her deep nostalgia, so typical of immigrant feelings. "The Door" is a recurrent motif as she sensitively and lyrically evokes the emotions of transition. Kidder is a poet's poet. She "open(s) the gate to poetry, its sudden shudders," and opens our eyes to see the seeds of poems in nature, as when "Rilke's Swan" "has scribed poems onto water." With a judicious minimum of esoteric rhetoric, Helga Kidder gifts us with a collection that both delights and instructs. Finn Bille, author of The King's Coin: Danish-American Poems Anspruch und Verstaendlichkeit sind bei Helga Kidder eine Einheit, sie laesst sich vom Klang wie vom Sinn leiten, vom Herz wie vom Verstand, mit der Form schaffen sie eine ideale Symbiose. Ihre Gedichte sind glanzvoll, voller Sentiment, auch Weisheit, Bilder des Alltagslebens von "First Flight" to "Return to the Black Forest," Bekenntnisse zur Kraft der Liebe, der Muehen, eine "Learning Curve," sich selbst, seine eigene Kraft zu finden "What We Don't Give Up." Mut haben, den Sprung wagen und dann weitermachen mit Disziplin und Leidenschaft "Stepping through the Self," getragen auch von ihrem christlichen Glauben: "We are gifts to one another." Helga Kidder's poems, through demand and intelligence, allow sound, mind, and form to shape into an ideal symbiosis. They are resplendent with light and persuasion, reflective of wisdom, picture every-day life from "First Flight" to "Return to the Black Forest," confessions of love's power and hard work, a "Learning Curve," and finding her own strength and courage "What We Don't Give Up," to take the leap with discipline and passion as seen in "Stepping through the Self," and also carried by her belief that "We are gifts to one another" ("Interlude"). Johanna Graupe, contributor for culture "Acher-Rench-Zeitung" and Director of "Burgbuehne Oberkirch" - Germany