Diane Thiel won Story Line's Nicholas Roerich Prize for a first book, which is a good sign when trying to decide whether or not to buy a book. I've found that the books that win this prize are generally good one. And Diane Thiel's book is a good one. She writes formal poetry with great attention to the rhythms and language of the poems. They are graceful poems and more often than not, the endings are stunning. And it's no wonder that her book won the award. If you look at the acknowledgments page, you'll see it runs a page and a half. It looks like just about every poem has been published in a journal, and several in award anthologies.

The book is divided into four sections. Section one, "Kinder-und Hausmarchen" deals with her father and her German heritage. It reminds the reader a little of Plath, but Thiel doesn't have the extremes that Plath thought she had. The poems are darker and hint at a rough childhood for the narrator. "He brought them with him--the minefields./He carried them underneath his good intentions./He gave them to us--in the volume of his anger ["The Minefield"] And one of the best poems in the book, "Love Letters," is found her. It's a poem about a woman learning German to understand the language of her husband and children. And the coldness returned sums up what this section is about--a distant father.

Section 2, "Memento Mori" (which is a reminder of mortality, failures, or mistakes) contains the best poem in the collection, "Memento Mori in Middle School." It's written in loosely rhymed terza rima and is about the narrator's oral (with visual aids) project in middle school. Thiel takes us through each of Dante's circles from both the child and the poet's understanding. This poem alone makes the collection worth buying. The rest of the poems in this section also deal with childhood.

Section 3, "Distance" is more loosely themed around adult love and loss. "South Beach Wedding" (about a couple strolling onto a movie set wedding) and "Bedside Readers" showcase Thiel's wit.

The final section, "The River Blued", seems a sort of catch-all for the left-over poems. There is no theme running through it, but there are some interesting poems. "History's Stories" is a twelve lined poem that echoes itself at the end of the line. And the echoed words create a phrase that sums the poem up. I forget the name of the form, but she does it well, and it doesn't seemed forced. She closes on the title poem, which seems fitting as the narrator walks through a hwaelweg (noted as 'whale-road, Old English kenning), and brings the whole collection into completion and touches on all themes in the book.

Echolocations is a well thought out, well written book. It's an impressive collection of poems, much less being a first book. It's a book I highly recommend, and one I think you will enjoy (especially if you enjoy the work of Kim Addonzio, Kate Light, April Lindner, Morri Creech, or Dana Gioia).

I loved this book - the depth and resonance of each poem. I like the compression of the work as well. Diane Thiel covers great distance within a few words. Consider this poem, "Swallow": It may take one/tiny hollowed skeleton/on the stoop below/for the eyes to rise and see/the swallows nesting/beneath the window. Or "Perception" - in which the form of repetition is altered quite deliberately to convey two different perceptions of a painting (by the painter and the subject). Thiel also has a strong narrative style in her longer poems. I was thoroughly impressed by her book.

As a librarian, I obtained a copy of this book after it was recommended for general collections by Library Journal. I read it cover to cover and was struck by the power of poem after poem. The book opens in the trauma (or "traume" - "dreams" in German) of childhood filled with the impact of war and violence, and ends with a vision of hope for the future. The different sections drew me through a range of emotions. I have been recommending this book daily to the poets and lovers of poetry I know.