Kyrie: Poems

Kyrie, Ellen Voigt's 1995 collection of poems, takes the Influenza Epidemic of 1918-1919 as its inspiration. Voigt's narrative poems create distinct characters (the members of a rural American family) in order to illustrate the suffering and the small redemptions of the winter of 1918-1919. The poems are written as letters, prayers, songs, and even sorrowful curses as the daily life and the inner thoughts of various family members are explored. One poem beautifully describes a bed used by the family: "This is the double bed where she'd been born,/ bed of her mother's marriage and decline,/ bed her sisters also ripened in,/ bed that drew her husband to her side..."Other poems deal with marriage and piano-playing, as well as hogs and chickens. Voigt is truly a master of the narrative poem; these untraditional, free-verse sonnets are musical and wry. What other contemporary poet can riff on hogs "Hogs aren't pretty but they're smart,/ and clean as you let them be" AND write such good metaphors: "We rode the mule to lessons, birds on a branch--/you know what it means to have your own piano?" Voigt's illustration of a lesser-known chapter of American history is profoundly written, and her characters are inviting. Any reader will enjoy Kyrie.