Laurie Koensgen

NationalPoetryMonth.ca April 14, 2023

Hands by Laurie Koensgen appears on NationalPoetryMonth.ca on April 14, 2023

From Laurie

“Hands” was written just before the pandemic, conceived over the 2019 Christmas holidays. My grown sons were home; each wanted to cook for us. The house was overflowing with provisions. In haste while making space, a bag of carrots was accidentally stowed in the freezer.

I read about Neanderthals burying their dead in rituals with flowers. The poignancy remained with me. Then I disinterred the carrots, discoloured as old bones. Sudden fusions: those splayed brown taproots and a Neanderthal’s fingers, my freezer and that archeological dig.

I considered writing a study of hands, in a series of short poems: hands greeting guests, offering gifts, at work preparing meals, setting out the china, holding other hands under the table… analyzed forensically, intimating the tenderness of their gestures.

There’s a fossil of my earliest readings in ”Hands,” from a hundred year-old poem. My line I am moved by echoes the turn in T. S. Eliot’s “Preludes.” After cyclical details of the workaday world comes an intimate reflection. Eliot apprehends time: I am moved by fancies that are curled / Around these images, and cling: / The notion of some infinitely gentle / Infinitely suffering thing.

“Hands” is a departure for me — a narrative based on science. My poetry is generally lyrical, in language that’s distilled and image-driven. More of my work is currently in Contemporary Verse 2 (Spring 2023), Pinhole Poetry’s anniversary issue 2.1, and flo.’s third volume, Trials. A poem is forthcoming in May, in Literary Review of Canada.  

About Laurie

Laurie Koensgen (she/her) lives and writes in Ottawa, Canada. Her poetry has appeared in journals, anthologies and online magazines across North America and in the UK. Recent and forthcoming publications include flo. Literary Magazine, Pinhole Poetry, Literary Review of Canada, Poetry Pause, The Madrigal, and Contemporary Verse 2. Her latest chapbook, Blue Moon/ Orange Begonias, is with Rose Garden Press. 

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