Peggy Hammond’s The Fifth House Tilts is a brave exploration of the dissolution of a marriage and a remaking of oneself. The title makes use of astrology, which divides the sky into 12 houses, the fifth one being the so-called house of pleasure. Hammond uses this concept to render trouble in the house of love. The collection opens bravely mid-heartbreak and carries on with transformative music and imagery. The speaker becomes a part of nature, the “seeds / rattling in a dry shell,” “a shy trout,” while nature, in return, is anthropomorphized and the “sky whispers rain.” These poems are sensual, unveiling, illuminating, and they take us to a place beyond logic yet so real, raw, and relatable. They are a song and a solace.
—Andrea Jurjević
author of Small Crimes
Leave a Reply