Hammond’s engaging collection, The Fifth House Tilts, explores themes of strength and resilience through the fictional speaker’s journey of re-building the self. Her protagonist, a courageous single parent, searches for “wholeness of being.” Each poem is a tender stepping stone in the process of letting go, grieving the loss of a marriage, and embarking on a new life. Beautiful images of nature are woven throughout, as in the poem “Dragonfly,” where her son is “soft-bodied, vulnerable, / new wings woven of lace and hope ….” Ultimately, these stunning poems guide us towards renewal, “the shape of new life is different / but it breathes / and reaches for the sun ….”
—Cristina M. R. Norcross
Founding Editor, Blue Heron Review, author of The Sound of a Collective Pulse, Beauty in the Broken Places, and other titles