Bringing Back the Bones

Written during the first three "Covid Years," For Now, We Have Been Spared is a collection of complex sequences and carefully constructed shorter poems that reflect the uncertainty of living through a pandemic-not only in terms of the immediate threats to the body, but also the tectonic shifts in how we perceive the nature of existence itself.The opening sequence-a sustained, metaphorical meditation on the devastation caused by the multiple deaths of a friend's sons, sets a tone of elegiac reflection that runs throughout the collection. Near tragedies are paired with simple joys; sickness is mirrored by health; coming-of-age is followed by poems immersed in the experience of aging.These are poems that carry the weight of decades of observation and experience. Their subjects range from the commonplaces of domestic life to the public realm of politics. What binds all of them together is their grounding in sensory detail. Extended narrative is present in nearly every poem. The subtle cadences of prose poetry also make their presence felt. These poems are set in particular, recognizable places and populated by everyday people who find themselves confronting trying circumstances. Always, though, hovering at the edge of perception, there remains the possibility of redemption and grace.

In these essays, Gary Fincke combines a journalist's relentless investigations into the darkest corners of the human condition with an academic's love for arcana. In one essay, almost forgotten homeopathic recipes from the pantries of Pennsylvania Dutch country are interwoven with the panicked absurdities of elementary school health classes in the 1960s. In another, old case files of small town murders intertwine with meditations on all the fears, large and small, that accompany parenting. In The Darkness Call, Fincke plumbs the depths- child abuse, violence, illness, grief- not for their sadness but for moments of courage, hope, empathy, and light.

The Fire Landscape is a series of poem sequences that chronicle a wide variety of coming-of-age moments from childhood in the 1950s through the beginning of the 21st century. These deeply layered, complex narrative poems are connected by close personal observation of place and time but also by the politics of the Cold War and its aftermath, including a sequence driven by the May 4, 1970, shooting of students by the National Guard at Kent State where Gary Fincke was a student at the time.