French for Soldiers
Nina Nyhart
"...There's an angular
extravagant, exploding feel throughout. Some of that extravagance is formal exploration
and variation; the language powers at the center of it, though; Nyhart shocks and delights
her reader, not so much through fantastic premises, situations, as through the fantasy and
change-up of the language itself. There's no firm ground in this book; everything's
quaking or erupting, straining in a strong wind, fissuring onto the white page. Nyhart
speaks in colors, fantastic figures; the syntax and diction goes haywire, the
point-of-view hops about. She writes, finally, with unity and control, though, and dreamy
release."
—Richard Silberg, Poetry Flash (June 1987)
"Nyhart's ppoems are a delight, her images darting quick as multicolored birds in a way that is both surprising and utterly natural."
—Ruth Whitman
about the author
Nina Nyhart is the author of two collections of poems: Openers and French For Soldiers, both published by Alice James Books. Her poetry has appeared in Poetry, Ploughshares, Shenandoah, Field, Poetry Northwest, The Virginia Quarterly Review, The Ohio Review, Puckerbrush, Sojourner, and other journals and anthologies. She is the winner of the Poetry Society of America’s Consuelo Ford Award, two New England Poetry Club awards, and four Mac Dowell Colony Fellowships.
