Tongue unbroken

Local poet Dianna MacKinnon Henning’s second book, The Broken Bone Tongue, finds articulate and lush language in the natural world, where everyday encounters—whether with deer in the forest or potatoes in the kitchen—open up avenues for exploration of grief, loss, discovery, solitude. The title poem kicks off a series of poems about bones and tongues, leading to the moment of awareness in “For the God of All Bones”: “your breath backed up / because you never realized / how going after one thing / brought about something entirely different.” This element of surprised discovery holds true for even the most mundane things, as that staple food of working people becomes an open door to art in “The Holiness of Potatoes”: “Even the earth-worm knows the richness / of tubers cloaked in their drab burqas, / how all things wrap into something for comfort.” The Broken Bone Tongue can be ordered at Black Buzzard Press, www.blackbuzzardpress.com.