All the Old Answers, and: Keeping

In “All the Old Answers,” poet Emma Hine inventories the objects left behind after a great-uncle dies, including a hatbox full of furs, a dollhouse, and a buffalo skull. The poem, which is set at the great-uncle’s house during his wake, moves past this catalog of found items into a broader consideration of history, memory, and future possibilities. In Emma Hine’s poem “Keeping,” a surreal look at the vulnerabilities and precariousness of growing up, a family of sisters dismantles their house and relocates it to an unpopulated hill, where they live while nature slowly overtakes the structure.