Shari Wagner reviews Library of My Hands by Joseph Heithaus for Indian Author Awards.
Library of My Hands by Joseph Heithaus begins like a medieval book of hours, with a richly illuminated capital letter. The introductory poem “Ode to the Letter A” addresses “Aleph’s child”—Aleph being the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, a letter signifying the oneness of God—and then draws forth a profusion of visual metaphors: “point, cone, / gable, peak, arrowhead / spinning toward prey.”Upright, the letter is “Little Window,” the frame through which the speaker strives to see “stars / and the streets below.” Turned on its side, “A” becomes the “open mouth” of the mythic poet and musician Orpheus whose torn body the speaker with the aid of language must piece back.
