Henrietta Goodman’s book Antilla takes its title from a phantom island that appeared on 15th century maps. The lush poems in Antilla (The Backwaters Press) continually question what is here and what isn’t, through ghostly presences. In “What Are We Going to Turn Into?” Goodman even refers to her son as pop culture’s friendly ghost after he has a scary stint in the hospital, thinking:
…how Gabriel’s father used to go around shirtless with huge
muscles and a huge grin calling my son Casper, how we laughed
together, and I’m thinking about that question, based on
the simplest metaphor I know, the only one that matters.
Goodman explores what/who is real again in the wonderfully feverish title poem:
https://www.poetrynw.org/henrietta-goodman-antillia/
Congratulations, Henrietta!
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Author: Denise Duhamel
