The Soluble Hour

In Hillary Gravendyk’s The Soluble Hour, the speaker sings with visionary passion how the beloved and dear ones will soon be without her and laments for their imminent grief. But being in extremis pulls the voice towards testimony of unquestioned love, a recollection of landscapes Californian and otherwise, and previous selves. The poet wields her deep solitude as the measure of truth and conviction, the self that accepts its own impermanence.