Capable Ways

“The odds are long. And I / have permission to speak.” In a voice as authentic as it is powerful, Challender gives us plain-spoken, heartfelt poems about family, place, love, and loss. Dipping into the well of memory, he evokes generations while recalling a life until now, his sixtieth year, when he has “begun / to wear my death / lightly, try / it on for size.” Whether recounting a dream enacting suppressed rage towards a dead brother, watching the three fates attend a son’s birth, or riffing on popular culture or academia, the poems run deep with currents of empathy and human connection. They are sometimes dark, but it’s a darkness that notices the beauty of “a lake spackled with light; / leaf’s syllable, wind-stirred” and can admit joy, as in a beloved daughter seen as “a gift / I wish I could say came from us: when / whoever’s DNA dice rolled your way they came up elevens / and sevens.” A moving and beautiful book and handy antidote to contemporary social-media-obsessed poetry. - Rebecca Foust, author of "Paradise Drive", winter of the Press 53 Award for Poetry