Joan I Siegel

Archaeology Joan I Siegel

Poetry. ARCHAEOLOGY covers several subjects through reflection and memory. Details and impressions, the visible and invisible, past and present, reflection on life, human conditions, and nature; the reader travels the currents in the verse by way of keen language, a musicality of voice, that reveals the awareness of all things wistful and beautiful. ARCHAEOLOGY excavates the past in exquisite language. Its focus is family: Siegel's own family and families far ourtside her personal sphere. Mothers and daughters especially come under her perceptive eye, three generations often missing each other in passing, sitting in silence, but also knitting together to create a skein of connection. These are poems of longing, loss and celebration, for what else to do when losing someone, but 'sit with her all night and sing'? Animals, domestic and wild, move through these poems, both as their own mystery [and] as a metaphor. Siegel knows that stillness is necessary for transformation--'a chamber for one/ where you disolve and grow /wings.' Though mostly serious and contemplative, she has moments of wry humanity and always 'Peers at darkness through the bright eye of the world.--Mary Makofske Whatever her subject matter, Siegel beckons the reader to explore the vast world of nature and the human heart.--Ronald Spatz