Eye of the Blackbird

Winner of the publisher's 1995 Intro Series in Poetry, McFadden's first collection casts a spell with long, patient lines reaching back to the time of her birth. Divided into four sections, her untitled poems trace the shape of her life from an early shaping event to the present. When she was 10 days old (""watching the movement: without language, what I know. Limitless""), her father, a soldier fighting in WWII, was killed by a German mortar shell. That moment's importance is captured by close attention to his body's decomposition: ""his eyes dim, the bodily fluids, the ferment and rot leak out of him,/ the insects cloud, the earth prepares itself,/ knowing how fruit falls, the earth marshals its worms, its ants,/ its shining beetles,/ the earth opens its grains to accept him drop by drop,/ gulping, greedy, ringing, silent, sleeping."" From this harsh root, McFadden develops a family history, bringing us to the present day, when the 10-day-old is grown, departed from the Western plains of her youth for the city, a mother with language and a grown daughter of her own. McFadden's eye is as omniscient as the eye of the blackbird in the title poem. A broad vision--of nature, sexuality and humanity's diversity--drives her work, which proceeds with a compelling element of narrative suspense. In the grand sweep of her lines and language, McFadden uncovers the moments that give structure to a life. (May)