A quiet but powerful voice
Amazon.com | FIVE STARS
Kat Ricker seems like one of those people you'd like to see every morning on a walk through the woods, or sitting quietly on a rock beside a pond, or even in the local coffee shop - somewhere where time pauses for good conversation with someone who has insight and the ability to listen and observe and share life in a way that makes the day richer.
This collection of poems and short prose, Something Familiar, rings true. Ricker has that gift to notice, and in noticing remember impressions to share with friends. Fortunately for us she invites us as friends into her charmed circle with this wondrously simple gathering of observations in the form of poems and short stories. The open honesty she shares in `Walnut Harvesting in Newberg', the nonchalant listening of `Brother on the bus', little stories that become brief poignant poems like `The Pin', and the irresistible atmosphere she conjures in her descriptions of `Summer' and `Outsider' and `Box Closed' - all of these seem to flow so easily from her pen that the result is more like shared conversation than the work of a master craftsman (which Kat Ricker obviously is.
Not that everything in the book is equally good: the short stories that incorporate pencil drawings as illustrations feel a bit precious and pushed, or perhaps they are just out of place in the context of this book of familiar things. But that is a minor flaw in a first publication, an introduction to an author that makes us beg for more. Kat Ricker is as fresh as that pot of brewing jam on the stove - just before grandma scoops off the foam for our freshly homemade bread. She is delicious!
