Stunningly designed and heartbreakingly powerful. Liphart builds a world where anything can be healed and hope is a force that never lets go.
Barefoot and Running invites readers to embark on a healing journey of poetry. It unfolds in its hands a promise of a softer world.
Through her lyrical and vivid style, Liphart sweeps readers up into a collection of poems that are equally beautiful and heartbreaking, both powerful and remarkably tender.
This chapbook has earned its place on the bookshelves of poetry lovers everywhere, where it can be a beacon of hope gently guiding readers back to themselves. It serves as a tender reminder that everything you need is already inside of you and you can always, always, always begin again.
Stunningly designed and heartbreakingly powerful. Liphart builds a world where anything can be healed and hope is a force that never lets go.
Barefoot and Running invites readers to embark on a healing journey of poetry. It unfolds in its hands a promise of a softer world.
Through her lyrical and vivid style, Liphart sweeps readers up into a collection of poems that are equally beautiful and heartbreaking, both powerful and remarkably tender.
This chapbook has earned its place on the bookshelves of poetry lovers everywhere, where it can be a beacon of hope gently guiding readers back to themselves. It serves as a tender reminder that everything you need is already inside of you and you can always, always, always begin again.
Part I: Leaving
The wrinkled map I keep in my trunk
is set and smoothed on the dashboard with shaking palms.
My sister may worry. Missed calls,
spare apartment keys turning to find empty.
My finger traces Colorado. I move west through blank cornfield roads,
then mountains and forest. Stiff limbs locked up, silent,
living out of my jeep with the rims bent in.
When I wake each morning, fog clouds
the windshield like a memory I push to the edge
of myself, details melting away. I speed
through smoky towns, past every dirty gas station
across the state line — the line between me
and my inherited sadness, as if I could cross that border
in myself too. I leave behind the silent defeats of my mother
and her mother and her mother before her,
raising children in a farmhouse, youth crumbling
like soil in the field. It’s enough just to try
to run. My toes push the pedal down
while my cell chokes in mud on the bottom of the Rock River.
I used to hold on with white knuckle fists, now
the ashes of my life are light on the wind
and my palms empty. West. I drive west,
watching yellow blinking lines on the pavement
blur together, like a hum of prayers
for second chances. And hope combusts
in my fuel tank,
the most powerful force that exists.
Part II: Arriving
I am standing in a field in Breckenridge, wondering
if a soulmate can be a place, instead of a person.
My hair blurs into the gold, wild grasses of fall
until there is no separating me from the land,
the land from me. This is how it was always
meant to be. I can roll my ear to the earth
and hear her welcome me home. I’m just sorry
it took me so long.
I read a lot of poetry. Some of it is to decide whether or not it should appear in a publication or has been posted in a group that I help administer. Best of all is when I read for the pure pleasure of it. Barefoot and Running combines business with pleasure, and for that, I am exceedingly grateful. Several times while reading I stopped in amazement at not only what I read, but how it was written. Brava!
This is a lyrical, thoughtful journey not only to a place but also within the interior life of the poet. Free verse is used in different manners; there is no monotony here. Neither is there any filler. Each of the poems in this short collection is well-chosen and integral to the complete work. Upon finishing, I was left with wanting to read more by the poet.
The concept of "place" is very important to me, and I gravitated toward that in this book. Even if I had never been to Colorado, I would have felt that I had been there when I read these poems.
A few examples of what I mean by the above follow. From "Part 1: Leaving", the poet takes out a roadmap and spreads it over the dashboard:
"My finger traces Colorado. I move west through blank cornfield roads
then mountains and forest." and
"I speed
through smoky towns, past every dirty gas station
across the state line - the line between me
and my inherited sadness."
And the interior journey from the title poem, recalling her great-grandmother:
"Now my heritage is a dead language.
There is no Rosetta Stone for the unrest written in my bones.
My breath begs question. I invent words she would say."
This is a book to read, reflect on it, and return to it again and again, to enjoy the writing, and to travel to the places contained in it. I feel guilty about having read it for free! If you only purchase a limited amount of poetry books, please make sure this on it on your list.