The Parts of Light

In her third volume of poetry, Hearne (Nervous Horses), a writer and animal trainer, strives to capture exactly what she knows she can't-the intense immediacy of animal consciousness, a consciousness free of the moral vagaries and intellectual preoccupations that pockmark human experience. Well aware of the contradictory nuances of human thought, she wrestles with these, and with the abilities and disabilities of language. Grammar and syntax are challenged, and challenge us. Her style, smooth in some places, choppy in others, reflects both the wholeness of animal presence and the jarring, fragmentary nature of human reason and reflection. Hearne's poems demand participation, refuse passive enjoyment; she dares the reader to stay in the saddle. She acknowledges the vitality and pure spirituality of our animal companions (a subject eloquently broached by Whitman, Rilke and others before her); she's also prepared to submit joyfully to them. She recognizes that an animal's union of body and spirit, and radical unself-consciousness, represent a quiet, humble superiority over humankind. (Oct.)