AMONG THE ABSENT

A poem in Neva Herrington’s new book, Among the Absent: New and Selected Poems, pays homage to the American poet William Meredith by quoting from him in an epigraph: “the worst / That can be said of any one of us: / He didn’t pay attention.” Herrington has a gift for paying attention to what is present and also to what is absent. If she finds she has “overstayed among the absent,” as she writes in the title poem, she redirects her attention to the present, which in this case involves a flock of Canada geese feasting by a wildlife preserve. Another elegiac poem, “A Family Chair,” discusses different ways people have “to encourage their dead’s contented presence.” Herrington’s poems are moving testaments to those who struggle to make homes among the living and those who, because of their keen memories, find themselves drawn to the dead. Her attentiveness to ethical and aesthetic concerns has led to this memorable selection of poems. —Henry Hart, Hickman Professor of Humanities, College of William and Mary