Emily Scudder's Feeding Time

Feeding Time
by Emily Scudder

ISBN: 978-1-931247-91-7 $15

"The poems in Feeding Time are unflinching, whether exploring domestic love, boredom, the death of a parent, the beautiful quotidian, or the inner workings of creatures and growing children. It is the 20/20 vision, never wavering, that I admire most—but it is a vision always tender and intimate, and therefore capable of summoning great sorrow and joy in a reader.

"The craft shows here, and, as always, original content and delivery that often stuns and always invites us in."—Suzanne Berger, These Rooms (Penmaen Press), Legacy (Alice James Press), Horizontal Woman (Houghton Mifflin). Teaches at Lesley University

"In this finely-honed book of poems, Emily Scudder contemplates what feeds the appetites of the body, what nourishes the imagination. Moving deftly between domestic spaces and marine-scapes, the poet catalogues the gritty details of family life right alongside images of unexpected beauty: the underbelly of a horseshow crab, a sleeping lover's blue-jeaned leg, an old Japanese woman in a 'striped farmer's jacket.' Emily Scudder is a wise, wry, fearless observer of life in all its raw and gorgeous forms." —Susan Carlisle, Tufts University

He carved his initials into the handle of his oyster shucker, his hatchets and yardsticks he hung on garage walls. He carved them into toolboxes and an 8 foot two-person saw. He initialed his scythe. H.O.W. Hartley Oliver Warren. ~ Cicadas return to Cape Cod every 17 years. When they do they make a continual noise. I would too. ~ Prepared, my father drafted his obituary in the family room on a yellow legal-sized pad. We knew where to find it when he died. We all want to be remembered. ~ Last summer we sold the old house. We emptied out the garage; divided up our grandfather's tools. The last day before I drove away, I took his hammer and chisel, carved my initials deep into the back left garage wall. E.W.S. Emily Warren Scudder