To read Judith O’Connell Hoyer’s collection, Imagine That, (FutureCycle Press 2023) is to travel through time—from World War II to the present—with an observant, gifted storyteller. Largely anchored in Massachusetts and Texas, with travels to Europe and elsewhere woven in, Hoyer’s poems are steeped in emotion delivered through color, fragrance, taste, and touch. Her words transform ordinary acts into sumptuous experiences laden with meaning. For example, in the poem Paris, the speaker recalls how she “learned to eat” one summer on the Left Bank where:
“Croissants
eased apart like
a woman’s hands unfolding,
tender as a promise.”
Later, in Finding Love in the Laundry Room when tender promise gives way to passion, the speaker engages us through visceral recollection.
“Somewhere in my brain I could hear the hot rivets
on your jeans clicking their tongues in the dryer
as we stood close, alone no more, the top-loader
shuddering as its insides spun out of control.”
Hoyer’s poems also offer leaps of thought and philosophical insight. In Evening Bag, the speaker notes, that in addition to an inherited purse’s “enveloping skin of creamy beads…There’s a hole in the lining the size of a white lie/my grandmother might have told her mother/about what happened that night.”
These poems acknowledge the mysteries of our human lives, yet somehow, against all odds in some cases, provide a sense of peace and gratitude. Praise Song opens with a characteristic pairing of beauty and danger.
“Praise the long way to the beach.
the waves that stand on end
like hair spiked in a barber’s chair.
The dinosaur roar of breakers rearing up for shore.”
Written largely in free verse, Hoyer’s poems are musical, and often employ internal and slant rhyme. Her formal pieces are similarly well-crafted. Scenes from Zagreb, written in terza rima, tells the sweeping story of a place through evocative images such as:
“Calvary’s purple gentians blister
the hill of bones where widows of war pray
at graves graced with oranges sweet and bitter.”
Strong women characters abound in this collection. Some of my recurring favorites first appear in the poem Great Aunts. The speaker describes them as:
“Handsome Misses with hair crimped in post-war do’s
and huge bosoms passed down by their mother.”
Throughout the collection, Hoyer’s wry humor tempers heartbreak and softens wounds inflicted by illness, loneliness, and aging. In Who I Am, the speaker shares her identity via things she hopes to remember. Some of these are heart-wrenching, some philosophical, some humorous, and some are all three, such as:
“I want to remember the fine powder of anticipation, how it clings
to everything that’s vital and worth being bad for.”
In her closing poem, Women Friends, the author displays her signature spirit when she says of her friends:
“Without you, there would be no pazazz,
no dazzling glass rings, no speeding tickets,
no weddings with lopsided cakes,
no kick of nasturtium along with the gin.”
Through her writing of the personal, Hoyer accompanies readers through the universal experiences of falling in love, cherishing and losing loved ones, and facing mortality. I find myself reaching for Imagine That whenever I need a dose of joy, insight, or astute, friendly commiseration.
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Judith O’Connell Hoyer is the author of Bits and Pieces Set Aside which was nominated for a Massachusetts Book Award in 2017. Her poetry appears in Cider Press Review, Atlanta Review, CALYX Magazine, One Art, Southwest Review, The Moth Magazine (Ireland), The New York Times Metropolitan Diary, The Worcester Review, Thimble, and other journals and anthologies. Judith worked as a school psychologist before devoting her time to poetry. She and her husband now split their time between Wayland, Massachusetts and Narragansett, Rhode Island.
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Mary Beth Hines is a frequent contributor to Lightwood as both a book reviewer and poet. Read more of her poems and reviews by going to our Search Button and entering her name.
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