Blacksnake at the Family Reunion: Poems

David Huddle s latest collection, Blacksnake at the Family Reunion, shares intimate and amusing stories as if told by a quirky, usually reticent, great uncle. In Boy Story, a teenage romantic meeting ends abruptly when the boy s sweetheart realizes they have parked near her grandmother s grave. The poem Aloft recalls a widowed mother s indignation after she receives a marriage proposal in a hot air balloon. Haunted by the words on his older sister s tombstone born & died . . . then / a single date / in November the speaker in one poem struggles to understand a tragic loss: The ampersand / tells the whole truth / and nothing but, / so help me God, / whose divine shrug / is expressed so / eloquently / by that grave mark. Blacksnake at the Family Reunion continues Huddle s ongoing poetic inquiry into the power of early childhood and family to infuse adulthood with sadness and despair an inquiry conducted with profound empathy for the fragility of humankind.