In the Well

Praise for In the Well, winner of the 2002 Bluestem Poetry Award:


"From it's opening poem, In the Well is rich in perspective, story, and the insistent pull of language's tensile strength. It's a book full of the expanse of life, from childhood to death, and colored all through with the sensuous endeavor of living attentively. '...the way we close the eyes//of the dead so that the body will not/watch and mourn as the spirit/touches each cell, gathers itself,/and leaves the adored flesh,' Elizabeth Tibbetts writes, and includes 'us' in the generous maturity of the poem, whether 'we' have ever done such a thing or not. In the Well reads as if it is written for our better selves and reminds us that, despite life's griefs or hardships, that's who and how we can be.



– Elizabeth Dodd