Hendrickson’s debut collection Five Red Sentries feeds our explorer nature. Nothing is too big or too small to kindle curiosity. From imagining what it feels like to be a “sheet of rain” or an acrobat in outer space “spring-boarding from the edge of the earth” to musing about prairie landscapes (“wide open space/spreads like a blanket,”) Raye Hendrickson takes us on journeys that evoke deep and mysterious longings. She explores connections, and the depletion we feel when someone or something vital is lost to us (“death stole my grounding.”) She explores her own inner terrain, using the image of walking the railway track as a forum for “questions about green or stars or skinned knees.” Finally, Hendrickson celebrates the emergence of strength (“heat/rises, fills my legs and feet, propels/me to dance, to carry myself tall”) and the joy of embracing life (“green, the colour of yes.”)
“Raye Hendrickson’s poem “Marguerite Lake” with its sensual and tactile imagery . . . makes the reader feel as if he or she inhabits the same summer scene replete with algae lake, hot sun, and saskatoons ready to be picked. — gillian harding-russell
