It's almost impossible to explain why the playfulness of Heather Tone's
Likenesses produces such delight. . . . Freedom, light, leggerezza,
speed, and depth. Crystal abyss, 'nothing, ' a touch of kabala. Perfect
projections of shades between death and life, a scent of Eden. Like
four-year-old boys throwing clumps of mud at each other, bursting into
happy laughter. These lines scream with joy. --Boston Review
Likenesses was selected by Nick Flynn for the prestigious Honickman
First Book Award. In his introduction he writes: Likenesses is made up
of five sequences of poems, many of which use the engine of simile to
drive them forward. Running alongside this simile-generating machine,
there is something also here of Genesis--the book is, in part, an
origin myth, an attempt to create the world by naming it.
Likenesses
When he is dead, a man in a
bathing suit looks most like a little boy.
A woman in a bathing suit
looks like a woman, unless she is quite
thin, in which case she looks like a little boy.
A little girl in a sundress looks like a little boy
in a sundress. Her mouth is a cold oval, as cold
as a strawberry. When dead, a robin red-breast
looks like a little girl, while it goes without
saying that Robin Hood looks like a boy . . .
Heather Tone's poetry has appeared in The Boston Review, The
Colorado Review, Fence, and other journals. A graduate of the Iowa
Writers' Workshop, she currently lives in Florida.
