{"product_id":"willow-hammer-patrick-donnelly-9781961897304","title":"Willow Hammer","description":"\u003ci\u003eWillow Hammer\u003c\/i\u003e is a consummate lyric of the aftermath. In his fifth book, Patrick Donnelly has his face pressed against the eyepiece as he looks unsparingly at the past, generating a sequence of poems that fans out kaleidoscopically upon learning, twenty years afterward, that his stepfather assaulted his sister. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e In response to this crime, Donnelly traces the consequences of ignorance, denial, bargaining, complicity, and finally revelation that reverberated through his and his loved ones' lives for five decades. His discovery of this catalyzing violation not only recontextualizes the siblings' shared history, but inflects the present as--finding analogues of his sister's abuse in the classical canon--he remembers his escape from home into spiritual disciplines and the study of dead languages. Revisiting the evolution of his own sexuality, he remembers singing a Byrd \u003ci\u003eMass\u003c\/i\u003e after a night at a gay bathhouse, characterizing the tenor and bass as \"two wrestling saints,\" \"lowest of the four voices-- \/ once I thought I saw them kiss each other's faces.\" \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e And that--recovering glimpses of his sister's unknowable interiority, reckoning with a truth that is unbearable and inescapable--is this book's difficult and endless work. In the wake of a particular kind of harm, \u003ci\u003eWillow Hammer \u003c\/i\u003eseems to suggest, justice may be a wishful concept--but that doesn't preclude testimony and salvage. \"Now\" documents the poet's arrival at this compromise: \"I remember my \/ little sister that was, \/ little willow of glass \/ upon whom he laid \/ his hammer hands.\" There is no revocation of the hands, but with tenderness, wit, and fury, Donnelly's lyrics refuse to let their shadow obscure his sister's recovery of her own agency. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Patrick Donnelly\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 196189730X\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9781961897304\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Four Way Books\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 03\/15\/2025\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 112\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.38lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.50d","brand":"Patrick Donnelly","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":46603033739519,"sku":"9781961897304","price":17.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/files\/img_046d40cf-fc67-43c5-8fca-fed5b694b256.jpg?v=1739696005","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/willow-hammer-patrick-donnelly-9781961897304","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}