Joyce Sutphen's evocations of life on a small farm, coming of age
in the late 1960s, and traveling and searching for balance in a
very modern world are both deeply personal and familiar. Readers
from Maine to Minnesota and beyond will recognize themselves, their
parents, aunts and uncles, and neighbors in these poems, which move
us from delight in keen description toward something like wisdom or
solace in the things of this world. In addition to poems selected
from the last twenty-five years, Carrying Water to the Field
includes more than forty new poems on the themes of luck, hard
work, and the ravages of time—erasures that Sutphen attempts to
ameliorate with her careful attention to language and lyrical
precision.
