Not a Hero

Rick Christiansen writes the kind of poetry that James Wright referred to as "the poetry of a grown man." In this sense, "Not a Hero," Christiansen's second poetry collection, is a continuation of his first book "Bone Fragments." He again embraces the adversities and sometimes shocking realities of his life and of those close to him, as a realist, without idealizations or anger but with the distance of an observer who has seen a lot. In his poem"Ladybug, he writes, "His mother would yell. / Hold him down with her knees, / kneeling on his arms. / Tell him that it was all because of him. / That she too was lonely and trapped. / And, they were out of grape popsicles." Christiansen is the most effective kind of witness. His poems report a painful history vividly and without self-pity.

Ximena Gómez, author of Last Day/ Último día and Conversations about Water/ Conversaciones sobre agua, both by Katakana Editores.

Not a Hero hums with life at the same time it steals your breath. A one-eyed man working up the courage to talk to a waitress, a one-armed butcher in the French countryside, an artist who stalks prey and paints masterpieces with blood, and young brothers careening down a hill in a wagon with clean laundry exploding on the sidewalk are all characters you become in these poems. And whether you survive the endless cold of the WWII trenches, or escape a slap from an alcoholic mother, or wait a year for your next MRI to have clear margins, or sweep into an autumn romance, you will be able to tell the story as if you were there. Christiansen will stall your heart with his honesty and reward you with his craft: ghazal, haibun, sestina, villanelle. But it is his jabs which will kill you: "ten old men sit side-by-side comparing death" and alas "it is all management and math." Christiansen conjures "so many sharp encounters" and he knows how to "slice or chop in a single motion" to leave only the bones on your plate and all of these living ghosts in your head.

-Scott Ferry, author of Sapphires on the Graves

NOT A HERO, Rick Christiansen's second poetry collection, epitomizes his simple, direct, evocative storytelling skills-prose poems without the telltale prose formatting. NOT A HERO is a story of life-a journey through Rick's eyes as he weaves tales of the lives of family, perhaps close friends, perhaps people he has observed. It's an engaging read, daubed, expertly, with wit, reflection, poignancy, at times humor, and unexpected phrases ("furniture as prophecy", "early bird catches the tumor"). Some of the poems will make you laugh (We would accept you if we could...but we can't...so we won't.); some will touch you profoundly (Parakeet Tricks). PS: If you're a reader of poem titles like me, you'll appreciate the clear, at times intriguing titles Rick has chosen for the vignettes in this collection such as Borrowed Blood, Why Men Should Not Own Parrots, A Tapestry of Buzzing, Coffee Faith, The Honesty of Women).

-Lynda V. E. Crawford, author of Washing Water