Two Poems by Bill Snyder
Magazine Review by Katy Haas
The Fall 2019 issue of Weber includes two poems by Bill Snyder: “Redundancy” and “Home.”
Snyder travels through time in these poems. In “Home,” he brings us to 1972 as he hitchhikes to his father’s house in Florida to surprise him with his arrival, and in “Redundancy,” he brings us to 1995 while he plays Scrabble with his mother.
Snyder writes with clarity, each poem rich with description that never bogs the message down. Each feels like a tiny short story, grabbing readers and pulling them into the scene. We are sitting at the table with his mother, “sunlight seeping in.” We are standing on the side of the road waiting in the humid air for a car to stop, “the sun behind a Burger King, Kentucky Fried, / all the rest.”
These poems are a pleasure to read, an intimate gaze at the familial bonds of Snyder’s speaker.
