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What Tender Things Survive is the second collection from Emma Steel, and it builds on the promise of Notes to Myselfwith a deeper, more searching examination of what it means to endure. From the exquisite economy of "An Unwelcome Visitor," in which Death is politely put off until she can adjust her schedule, to the raw vulnerability of "Rider in the Night" and the mythic longing of "Isle of Apples," Steel continues to demonstrate her remarkable gift for moving between registers without ever losing her footing. These are poems about resilience, grief, love, and the quiet daily act of choosing to keep walking, one foot in front of the other.
Yet Steel never lets the weight of her themes overwhelm the delight she takes in language and surprise. "Garden Theft" turns a deer's raid on the raspberry patch into something both furious and hilarious; "Isle of Apples" sets Arthurian legend alongside a clock-punch at the end of a work shift. It is this ability to hold the profound and the playful in the same hand that makes Steel's voice so distinctive and so rewarding. For readers who began the journey with Notes to Myself, this second collection deepens the conversation considerably; and its title alone, What Tender Things Survive, is a quiet promise that beauty and feeling persist, however much the world conspires against them.
What Tender Things Survive is the second collection from Emma Steel, and it builds on the promise of Notes to Myselfwith a deeper, more searching examination of what it means to endure. From the exquisite economy of "An Unwelcome Visitor," in which Death is politely put off until she can adjust her schedule, to the raw vulnerability of "Rider in the Night" and the mythic longing of "Isle of Apples," Steel continues to demonstrate her remarkable gift for moving between registers without ever losing her footing. These are poems about resilience, grief, love, and the quiet daily act of choosing to keep walking, one foot in front of the other.
Yet Steel never lets the weight of her themes overwhelm the delight she takes in language and surprise. "Garden Theft" turns a deer's raid on the raspberry patch into something both furious and hilarious; "Isle of Apples" sets Arthurian legend alongside a clock-punch at the end of a work shift. It is this ability to hold the profound and the playful in the same hand that makes Steel's voice so distinctive and so rewarding. For readers who began the journey with Notes to Myself, this second collection deepens the conversation considerably; and its title alone, What Tender Things Survive, is a quiet promise that beauty and feeling persist, however much the world conspires against them.