Heather Tosteson

Source Notes Heather Tosteson

The intimate and also highly generalizable poems in Source Notes: Seventh Decade revolve around two core questions: "If everything we said to define ourselves/was preceded by Just like everyone or/ Like most of us, what would shift/in the life-long construction project/we call our self?" and "Who says age can't be luxurious, /astonishing, sui generis?" The poems in the collection move from public events to highly personal ones, both past and present, and explore creativity, the sweetness of age, the joys of marriage, early trauma, motherhood, family relationships, the surprising resonances of travel and the mysteries of savoring in place. Within and between poems patterns appear, disappear, transform, new stories, without noticing come into being, teaching us again and again "we are never too old for rebirth, the hold of the miraculous." Intriguing photographs amplify the text.