My Roberto Clemente

Doug says: As life on a societal scale shifts, so do poems. Whether we are awake now or not, creatures of deceit vie for our attention and fealty. What can we do? Reading Rick Hilles' book is definitely one way to stir and inspire an open-eyed experience.

Rick Hilles’s My Roberto Clemente begins with an invigorating homage to a childhood baseball idol and legend and ends with an appreciation to an anonymous man (possibly a retired circus clown or sideshow freak) feeding pigeons in Washington Square Park who sits as “still as any public statuary…as if any one of/our blue lives depend upon it.” And how much our lives depend on the many discovered mercies—small and large—that this poet brings to our fortunate and ultimately grateful attention in My Roberto Clemente.

Rick Hilles’s My Roberto Clemente is a collection that turns to the recuperative powers of poetry in the midst of the various dark forces bearing down on us to draw more strength and resilience—even delight!