Treading Water

In “Treading Water” the poet Constance Hanstedt explores the most vital aspects of family, history, memory, roots, loss and redemption. This book eloquently highlights that important space between silence and sound. It examines this through well crafted poetry that takes us to age old rivers, a third base dugout, old dogs, and a blazing mid-west sky. The poems in this collection let the reader settle in and will make the reader long for the time when “the earth grew quiet”. This work also examines the darker journeys that many families struggle with. But the poet reminds us “whatever you can find, that will be enough” and leaves us understanding how not all difficult memories can be settled, but there are ways to keep the “archives of memories, caulked”. If poetry is supposed to be like a “melody soothing every muscle, every weary bone” then this collection masterfully accomplishes that. “Treading Water” helps us to know that although our journeys can often be difficult “sometimes triumphs are simple”.