A duck in a doctor’s coat. A tea party with an elephant. A child who wonders about the weight of success. It is not a casual daydream or two – these are the worlds you can go into by reading the pages of Docs and Ducks: A Quakery of Poems, the capricious new book by Hannah.
To the eye of the common reader, the poems seem light, frolicsome, or playful. In her first work, Doctors and Ducks / One has green feathers / One has green bucks, she takes a jab at medicine and money in the quick-wittedness of a nursery rhyme. But wait a bit more, and you will see the deeper currents – how laughter and sorrow are floating one above the other in this book.
A Child’s Eye, an Adult’s Voice
The poems by Hannah are penned in a way that they are written by a person who is able to remember what it was like to be a kid, but is able to see the world through the eyes of an adult. In “A Little Pain Can Help Realize the Gain,” she uses something as simple as a sprained finger and blows it out of proportion to show how we tend to ignore the tiniest of life gifts until something happens and we lose them.
There is a sense of curiosity in each piece, in that the world is a playground, full of oddities, contradictions, and beauty. She can laugh about porcupines that must not be scratched the next moment, and “she is asking the readers to stop and ask the question, ‘Are you a happy person?’” The poems are not hard to read, yet they will not drop you easily, and they linger in the head like a melody that cannot be forgotten.
A Gallery of Animals and Oddities.
The creatures are wandering through the poems of Hannah as old friends. There is a duck, a mule, and ants, bald eagles, elephants, and even a cunning mouse in their time in the limelight. Every animal is turned into an icon, a means of indicating human manners, expectations, and duplicities.
Consider Praise the Ant, of where she picks up the small worker as an example of industry, or You Work Like a Dog, of where she hangs the animal comparisons together to demonstrate how humans borrow from the animal kingdom as a whole when working day by day. It is strange and funny at the same time.
Her jokes are witty and her verses playful, yet they carry a subtle social commentary within them. In Hard Times, she creates a picture outside a grocery shop where the lines are not so long to buy the products, they are just long enough to get the job; even master’s degrees cannot secure a job as a cashier. With the help of a few lines, she manages to grasp the ridiculousness of contemporary struggle.
Poetry That Feels Personal
There is something tender between the jokes and the playful stanzas. The book is dedicated to My Sweetest Little Man. Quick to come, quick to go, and leave your unerasable mark in the world. It is a basic, some heart-stopping remark that this collection is the result of happiness and tragedy. It seems that laughing is a part of healing.
That personal sadness, combined with the artistic outpouring, causes Docs and Ducks to be more than a book of rhymes. It is a voyage through childhood flashbacks, life experiences, and even national observations, as in America the Freedom, when she doubts democracy with not only respect, but also doubt.
About the Author:
As a teenager, Hannah started to write poetry and devote her passion for words to verse and school dramatic productions, which she also directed. Although she went on to become an educator and is currently a math consultant, she has always loved words and storytelling. The English language is her biggest asset and her forever companion.
It is through that love of language, however, coupled with the loss, that her first poetry collection, Docs and Ducks: A Quakery of Poems, was born. With the death of her son, Hannah got a fresh urging to write, to leave his unerasable mark on the world, to infuse some wholesomeness and happiness in others with her writing. Her poetry combines humor and sincere reflection and turns sadness into lightness and laughter, and reminds readers that even grief can be creatively recast through her talent.
