Blacksnake at the Family Reunion: Poems

This title is printed to order. This book may have been self-published. If so, we cannot guarantee the quality of the content. In the main most books will have gone through the editing process however some may not. We therefore suggest that you be aware of this before ordering this book. If in doubt check either the author or publisher’s details as we are unable to accept any returns unless they are faulty. Please contact us if you have any questions.

David Huddle’s latest collection, Blacksnake at the Family Reunion, shares intimate and amusing stories as if told by a quirky, usually reticent, great uncle. In
Boy Story,
a teenage romantic meeting ends abruptly when the boy’s sweetheart realises they have parked near her grandmother’s grave. The poem
Aloft
recalls a widowed mother’s indignation after she receives a marriage proposal in a hot air balloon. Haunted by the words on his older sister’s tombstone -
born & died… then / a single date / in November
- the speaker in one poem struggles to understand a tragic loss:
The ampersand / tells the whole truth / and nothing but, / so help me God, / whose divine shrug / is expressed so / eloquently / by that grave mark.

Blacksnake at the Family Reunion continues Huddle’s poetic inquiry into the power of early childhood and family to infuse adulthood with sadness and despair - an inquiry conducted with profound empathy for the fragility of humankind.