This Rocking Motion of Time

In this beau­ti­ful col­lec­tion of poems, Yvonne Pear­son casts a panoram­ic look at her life and asks, ‘How do we live with/this rock­ing motion of time?’ This ques­tion informs all the book’s poems, poems about a child­hood in North­ern Min­neso­ta, about rais­ing chil­dren, about a long mar­riage. With rich imagery and qui­et lyri­cism, the poems artic­u­late the joys and com­pli­ca­tions of dai­ly life. An open curios­i­ty and gen­eros­i­ty inform the col­lec­tion, explor­ing the mys­ter­ies of time and the mean­ing one might make of a life. And while the cen­tral ques­tion Pear­son asks is unan­swer­able, the book’s final poem sug­gests an under­stand­ing born of expe­ri­ence: “I can­not choose what comes in/The dark­ened line, the shadow/enters with the light? So be it.” Shad­ow and light; joy and sor­row; birth and death—all of these make up the rock­ing motion of time, and Pear­son, in the last words of the col­lec­tion, wel­comes them in. (Cullen Bai­ley Burns, Poet, Paper Boat, Slip)