Suspension

Though the book is called Suspension, there is no hesitation here in how Paige Riehl describes the complicated, outrageous, glorious, and grief-stricken world in which we all live. The subjects are varied—love, children, illness, travel—but the voice speaking the poems goes unfailingly to the challenges of our 21st-century western world. The poems often afford a resolution, no matter how momentary. There is rawness here as well as delight. Perhaps most telling, the book is a sustained meditation on love in its many guises. As such, it is a gift, and it is our luck as readers to be its recipients. —Jim Moore

Paige Riehl’s poems explore constant and probing questions that arise with the crossing of thresholds. Whether exploring questions of motherhood, family, with whom one belongs, or whether the poem’s speaker is an unfurled ribbon investigating the self, Riehl proceeds with elegance and certitude. As one’s course in the world is shifted, she offers readers the grace notes to read such transitions with bewilderment and with the understanding of each new moment’s possibility.  —Oliver de la Paz