REVIEWS OF ART LESSONS
Like Van Gogh, whose paintings weave through this collection, Ann builds a vibrant impasto of word and image that reflects a burning and vulnerable passion for life in all its beauty, and even more divinely, in all its difficulty. With her artist’s eye, Ann finds the sublime everywhere -- in the suburbs, in Walter Reed hospital, in a cheap print of Sunflowers -- then uses her floating, lyrical voice to paint poems that are intuitive, redemptive, and breathtakingly lovely. I don’t know if I have read a book that radiates with this much brave persistence in loving the world. When Ann writes “All I can come up with are words/In them I bless the syllables/In them I form the shape of a heart”, she perfectly describes her own work; blessed language that forms, and informs, the heart.
Kirsten Dierking
In Ann Iverson's newest collection, Art Lessons, she follows a path made with Van Gogh's words, then leaves the path to ..."try to consider how life works. And I try to consider how I fit in to this extraordinary plan." These lines, from the poem, In Every Minute of Every Hour of Every Day, become an anchor and a sail for the reader as we read. Iverson's eloquence as she considers her place inside faith, memory, nature, family, and loss is evident in each poem of this fine book. In the poem, The Poppies, she writes, "My guess is that I go unnoticed in this world of opening and unfolding..." but her readers see this poet, her struggles, her compassion, her talent, as each poem opens and unfolds. Iverson's faithfulness to art, poetry, memory, and her patience with the world makes Art Lessons a book to own and to read in any season.
Deborah Keenan
As I read through these poems I began to feel that I was reading a book of odes that were also elegies, or was it elegies that were also odes: poems that honor, explore and celebrate the nature of love. Of course, there is sadness threaded through them--how could it not be so given the way love both comes and goes--but at its heart, Art Lessons is a book that cherishes life in all its forms, perhaps most especially as it manifests in visual art. The voice that speaks the poems is quiet, but carries with it a wonderful confidence, that knows that as long as it finds itself at the intersection of elegy and ode it will know exactly what it needs to say. This is a wonderful book!
Jim Moore