Gentle Slaughter

<p>Philip Belcher's first full-length collection of poems reveals a poet probing memory and art-their jumble of fact and imagination-to explore the challenges of living with full awareness of decline of acknowledging failure to meet one's own expectations and of accepting the inevitability of limitation. Influenced by a long line of southern poets including R.T. Smith Claudia Emerson Rodney Jones and Steve Scafidi-poets whose poems stretch far beyond what might be labeled regional-Belcher's poems also echo Dickinson's theological reflections Philip Levine's discovery of the profound in the quotidian Hayden Carruth's absorption in place and Philip Larkin's overarching pessimism. These poems usually meditative do not neglect humor or beauty but do not employ them in a way that distracts from the reality of lives ultimately governed by grief.</p><p><br></p><p><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Philip Belcher's poems are understated compassionate and intimate but never sentimental or predictable; grave but not dour witty but seldom riotous. While the subjects of his work include gardening hound dogs rowdy youthful escapades and a wily knowledge of the natural world they also have room for The Antiques Road Show Durer Shiva the photographs of Diane Arbus and Shelby Lee Adams all raising ethical questions demanding rumination and candor. His sentences are carefully pruned polished and rife with withheld suggestiveness the most memorable ones about the poet's father as he enters dementia. They cut to the bone but Belcher accepts the mandatory cull of wounded fruit and the mystery of black birds raining from the sky as he engages the unseen and whispered. Though Belcher's terrain is the often-raucous mid-south his diction is not antic his comedy never far from tragedy. His perspective is shaped by training in seminary and law school as well as vigorous curiosity. His touch is light. His aim is true. </span><em style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Gentle Slaughter</em><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> is a remarkable inspiring and beautiful book.</span></p><p>-R.T. Smith</p><p><br></p><p><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Nothing dies as slowly as a scene Richard Hugo once said and that line came to me often as I read these excellent often elegiac poems. Whether writing of youth or old age of photographs or place Philip Belcher creates images that endure: windblown burning leaves become little kites of fire words bulging creels of speech. Yet the artistry is always in service of conveying the depths of the human heart. </span><em style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Gentle Slaughter </em><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>is a beautiful and memorable collection.</span></p><p><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>-Ron Rash</span></p><p><br></p><p><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>In cogent sentences Philip Belcher sets forth the sweet and punishing truths about family and neighbor-those who mourn or mourned the ones who may be poor in spirit the impure and the pure residing in the rural counties of </span><em style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Gentle Slaughter.</em><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> Poems that are so artfully made and truly told are required reading.</span></p><p><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>-Carol Frost</span></p>