Stevens Memorial Library (North Andover)

The raincoat colors, poems by Helena Milton

eng

contains biographical information

no index present

poetry

The raincoat colors

1041143696

poems by Helena Milton

In simple, compressed language, and often stark images, Helena Minton meditates on the mysteries of every day: an early morning encounter with a neighbor; an attempt to identify a particular wind; an empty office, where “No one is walking in.” The effect of “High Summer” on her skin is so fleeting that it feels like “a trick.” After the death of her father, in an effort to find her place in her world, she travels to Paris, where she spent part of her early childhood, “speaking/this language I only half remember.” In Florida, she is drawn to the anhinga, a bird that reveals “Grace in the awkward gesture.” She has lived long enough to become one of the collectors “who can’t focus enough/but can’t begin to throw out.” She is also a collector of words, like“adamantine,” that “…shines in the centuries’ dark.” In her quest to hone in on definitions, states of being and essences, Helena Minton trains her eye on…“the scrutiny of the elusive.”