Unfamiliar Weather (The Muses’ Company) is a first book of poems by Chris Hutchinson, who isn’t so tempered in his questions but plunges into them head-first and thirsty. These poems are afflicted by rain and sometimes flooded. Though the rain may be familiar, what it brings isn’t: loneliness and lost cats, tombstones and spiders, love and a warm bed and all the resulting complications. I am surprised and also grateful for Hutchinson’s boldness. Even the ghazals aren’t spared. We are taught that poems are supposed to be so careful. But how to be careful with a life that’s messy? Unfamiliar Weather offers up poems that are an unlikely balance of fine and fierce.
Jill Boettger writes poetry and nonfiction from her home in Calgary, where she lives with her husband and two kids. She teaches in the Department of English, Languages and Cultures at Mount Royal University and is a frequent contributor to Geist.
