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Review of A.R. Williams' "A Funeral in the Wild: Poems" by Tiffany M Storrs



While reading through A.R. Williams’ debut collection A Funeral in the Wild: Poems, I became haunted by the concept of a sense of place: of roots, where they attach, and what happens when those things change. Human nature dictates a need for some semblance of structure, of routine — we adapt to people and places, adjust to circumstances, find comfort in everything from reliable seasons to building structures to curtain colors. We acclimate, “bloom where we’re planted” to quote a cliché, for better or worse.


A harsher truth dictates that nothing in life is static. Williams reflects tenderly on life’s impermanence in this work, chronicling painful absences ranging from human presence to former homes to love lost in the tide and the remnants we reckon with in their wake. 


From The Newlywed:


As I stare at another feeble attempt

to delay the inevitable, I am reminded

of my early years of marriage. I was


young,

broken,

hurting,


and confused, trying to love another,

while lacking love for myself. Self-help

books, prayer, empty promises—


bungy cords,

ropes,

zip ties.


From On My Porch:

A breeze wafts its

earthy, chemical breath

on my porch.


Here, I taste your

nebulizer drug just as I did those

many winter eves.


From Dog Tag Necklace:

A blissful boy, I wore your pride around my neck,

until the chain disappeared from the pool that summer.


Today, I saw a cadet at the pharmacy and recalled the pool,

wondering whether your approval was still there.



If nothing in life is permanent, that also extends to despair. Constant shifting of circumstances means you find what is good and beautiful again even in the wake of loss. A Funeral in the Wild: Poems is not merely a documentation of destruction but an observation of that shifting, like the changes in a beach’s appearance at high and low tide.


From What Gives Me Hope:

But that was before the pizza became cold, the ballpark

expensive, and this house, too small. Now, we long to bud


where we were first planted. But today our neighbor—

the gardener—said that of all weeds, dandelions


can withstand the harshest growing conditions.



A Funeral in the Wild: Poems by A.R. Williams is scheduled for release in February 2024 through Kelsay Books.




A.R. Williams (PhD, Bangor University, Wales) lives with his family in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley. He has been widely published in poetry journals, magazines, and anthologies. He is also the editor of East Ridge Review. A Funeral in the Wild: Poems is his first poetry collection.

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