Review: Providence in the Fall of a Sparrow by Robert Judge Woerheide

In this inspired collection, composed over seven crucial years in the life of poet Robert Judge Woerheide, we learn what it is like to be a prisoner and what it is like to be free, from within and without.

The first selection in Providence in the Fall of a Sparrow: A Journey of Poems, “Neanderthal Love,” pictures a prehistoric tribe carefully watching over a wounded comrade, his broken legs necessitating his cradling and foretelling his death, after which they will dig a grave a meter deep: “perhaps the first to ever be loved in this way.”

“Elegy for the Dark Room” recalls a pre-cellphone time when photographers made pictures come alive with elaborate equipment in private spaces; the poet celebrates his father “tending to memories behind a closed door.” The sorrow of loss is expressed when a “Wedding Ring” is sold; the poet recalls the many poignant memories associated with it, “like when it was lost” or “when I showed it off” until now when it is dropped “into a tiny plastic bag” and a dealer “hands me forty dollars with a smile.” There is romance, too, such as this sleepy embrace shared in “Endless Cosmos”:

You next to me,
Legs wrapping warm body, your hair curling
Into my pillow

The bulk of the book, however, describes existence inside the walls of a penitentiary, as in this rough assessment (“Brotherhood in Pod C”):

A brotherhood of standing counts,
Toilets flushed, and the neighbor’s
Urination. This brotherhood of junkies
And convicts, memorizing a new humanity

“Meal Time” lays out the poet’s “rules for eating” – whom to avoid, what foods to set aside, such as the Kool-Aid “doused with that impotence drug.” And perhaps most evocative is “Hurt Space,” in which the prisoner’s cell is starkly defined:

Ten feet by seven feet of concrete box
A steel platform three feet by six
A corner shelf for a desk,
A porcelain sink, toilet
My little cage

Most of Woerheide’s creations are short, a page or less, and all are composed in free verse. Of his poetic gifts there is no doubt; his strong, stirring use of simple words is impressive, and none of these offerings has the slightest hint of pretense. The prisoner is personified as someone who knows the price to be paid and who contemplates with mature wisdom the life outside, once he is free; in “When I Return” he wonders, “What will it be like to regain my hold on time?” Woerheide has kind words for his incarcerated brothers, seeing their humanity despite the degradation of their enforced deprivations. This will challenge some readers to rethink some of their preconceptions of such men.

Woerheide’s writing evokes both thoughts and feelings, and should, for good effect, be read aloud and shared with others. The poems here entwine a number of hard life experiences – they have the power to affect those who’ve been there and inform those who have not. In total, Providence in the Fall of a Sparrow is a deeply affecting collection of poetry that is unique in its focus, and therefore its impact.