Night Wing over Metropolitan Area (Carnegie Mellon University Press Poetry Series)

Introspective poems that balance past and present beauty and pain.

Hoppenthaler's fourth collection gives voice to a hard-earned weariness that acknowledges but resists resignation. As Grammy Award-winning songwriter Rosanne Cash puts it, "Hoppenthaler's attention to the specifics of nature--hummingbirds, Japanese maples, snowfall--are like embroidery, stitched through and holding together the sharp memories and images of loss, longing, regret, and hope." These subtle yet powerful poems assay aging, spirituality, contemporary political concerns, death, the struggles of a mentally ill child, and related marital pressures. In the end, the poems conclude with a sense of resiliency and purpose reinscribed.