The emotional images Riehl creates through her words examine Julia's work, her love of life, the moment of her death, and the longing of those she left behind. Riehl goes on to share equally captivating poetry about her father, her mother, and two places that have special meaning to her-- the family home in Evergreen Heights and her later residence of Clear Lake in Northern California. In addition to the poems themselves, Riehl provides emotional commentary that fills in the missing pieces and develops a more complete memory for the listeners to enjoy.
Her words are straightforward, beautifully crafted, and offer a wonderful piece of storytelling. From beginning to end, the new audio book Sightlines: The passion that Janet Riehl has for her family, her history, and the beauty that surrounds her is obvious. Even if you already read the printed version of Sightlines: A Poet's Diary when it was released several years ago, you will want to enjoy the extra features and meaning that are offered through this listening experience as well.
The audio segments have been expertly compiled and edited to create the comfortable atmosphere of someone's home while also displaying professional detail to recording quality and content progression. Each moment of the CDs is filled with warmth, humor, and a deep connection to those who have come before us. Sightlines is a must-have audio book for anyone who appreciates a good love story with the perfect musical accompaniment! This recorded version of Sightlines: A Poet's Diary expands on the original 90 poems by including brief clips of 40 songs played by her year-old father and his Sunday Afternoon music group.
The poems are further set in a wider context with her father's stories, and he reads the poems he wrote that open Sightlines, along with the lines of dialogue that appear in poems sprinkled throughout. In this unique offering, we glimpse the lives, past and present, of the poet and her family. Together words and songs weave a magical tapestry of myriad threads, recounting family folklore in the warm timbres of Riehl's quiet-spoken voice, each story-poem set in the lively rhythms of fiddles, guitars and mandolins, music reminiscent of a bygone era.
The sometimes slightly discordant notes of the violin merely add to the beauty of the tales told. This series of poems and songs is a memoir. It is also a series of love poems, composed in memory and celebration of three people and two places Riehl loves. She traces the treasured reminiscences of a childhood shared with her two older siblings--her sister, Julia Ann, and her brother, Gary, tenderly watched over by loving parents.
Her attentiveness to detail is evident in the images and words which reflect her considered awareness of who she is and where she comes from. Here is where Riehl composes the haunting and lyrical songs to her sister, tragically killed in an automobile accident, an experience so devastating that almost every succeeding poem is written in reference, either directly or obliquely, to it. The mother and father captured on her pages are our mothers and fathers, the love she expresses for them is the love we feel for our own.
One striking feature of Riehl's poetry is the unmistakable sense of presence that the author brings to her subject matter. Pick any poem from the book, and almost immediately the reader comes face to face, as it were, with the poet. She recounts, sometimes in devastating and searingly honest detail, her mother's progressive dance towards death. She is not afraid to open herself to the suffering of returning and re-living the death of her sister, a tragedy that changed everything.
Riehl is a woman who has seen a lot, more in fact than many of us would wish to encounter. Yet her presence assures us that we too can survive the unthinkable; that we can live to tell the tale. And what is more, that in telling our stories we become more of who we are destined to be. If we can locate the bravery within ourselves that Riehl points us towards, then we too may become in time as compassionate, caring, understanding and yes, even forgiving, as she.
For indeed is this not what the best memoirs do? They do not point the finger of blame, but rather paint a picture of a wholly believable individual, someone who might have been our sister or brother or mother or father. In the end it is the universality of her subject matter that renders her poetry so accessible.
We read her poems not just to peep through a window into her life, but to lift the veil a little on our own, so that we may perhaps learn something about ourselves and our loved ones, even while we swim in the subterranean waters of her words. Even though it is June, the evening air from the open window is cool here at the beach. I am warmly wrapped in a blanket, sitting alone as the last light of the day fades. I am listening to the audio book Sightlines: I had read Sightlines: A Poet's Diary and truth be told, I did not want to listen to the spoken version. I feared that my personal experience of the written poems, which had been profoundly moving, would be diminished.
I need not have feared. Although listening was a different experience, it was as rich and meaningful as reading had been. The poems speak of a family's love and of the anguish when Julia, the first born dies in a traffic crash. One hears and feels the emptiness in the family homestead when the mother follows Julia out of this life.
Erwin Thompson, the king of this clan, says that the last years have been hard ones, and who would not understand if he chose not to speak of his losses? But speak he does with voice and with music; this is not a man who asks to be spared because he is old. Sitting now in a dark room, I listen to music that takes me back through many years. Long-buried sorrows roll into my mind, and tears roll down my cheeks. But wait--together Erwin Thompson and Janet Riehl laugh as he reminisces about a pet chicken from his boyhood. As they honor their losses with story and song, they go forward.
I wipe away my tears. This is poetry and music to treasure. It may be that the very young, who as yet know little of anguish, will not understand What suggestion did she make to Janet? First, watch Sightlines Blog Tour Video 8: Why is mechanical licensing important?
How did Janet and Yvonne meet? First, read the two reviews for Sightlines audio book on the CD Baby product page here: What, in the review titled "Poems of Love and Loss," does the reviewer consider to be the qualities present in Sightlines audio book that the best memoirs do? When we diligently read our history books as part of our school's curriculum, we learn about the famous men and women who earned their spot in print as world leaders, great businessmen, explorers, military heroes, or even criminals. While all aspects of history fascinate me, I must confess that my interest has always been more with the everyday folks who loved their families, took pride in their work, and, although they may never be studied in a classroom, made a lasting impact on the people who knew them.
My ninety-eight-year-old grandmother has an amazing memory and can recount in detail an incident that happened with a playmate in She is also a musician who shares songs and piano melodies that remind her of being a teenager or raising her children during a war. I know from her that the retelling of family history and traditions is the best way to capture a picture of a bygone era. I have discovered a treasure that beautifully captures this appreciation for the warmth of family and home.
The new audio book Sightlines: Riehl's audio book developed from her written text, Sightlines: A Poet's Diary, which was published in With the new release, Riehl adds the elements of down-home music and her own voice bringing life to the poems she created. The musical component features her father's singing and fiddle playing as he is joined by other musicians for recordings that took place in his living room. The fact that the music was not performed in a high-tech professional studio makes its inclusion even more appealing and appropriate. As you listen to old friends gather to play music, you feel so fortunate to be let into the intimate gathering.
I felt that I should be sitting in a rocking chair with my eyes closed as I let the simple beauty fill my soul. Each piece provides a seamless transition for the subjects of the poems it connects. The poems by Janet Riehl are divided into five groupings that are spread over four CDs. The first section is devoted to her sister Julia also known as Skeeter , who was tragically killed in a car crash several years ago. The emotional images Riehl creates through her words examine Julia's work, her love of life, the moment of her death, and the longing of those she left behind.
Riehl goes on to share equally captivating poetry about her father, her mother, and two places that have special meaning to her-- the family home in Evergreen Heights and her later residence of Clear Lake in Northern California. In addition to the poems themselves, Riehl provides emotional commentary that fills in the missing pieces and develops a more complete memory for the listeners to enjoy. Her words are straightforward, beautifully crafted, and offer a wonderful piece of storytelling.
From beginning to end, the new audio book Sightlines: The passion that Janet Riehl has for her family, her history, and the beauty that surrounds her is obvious. Even if you already read the printed version of Sightlines: A Poet's Diary when it was released several years ago, you will want to enjoy the extra features and meaning that are offered through this listening experience as well.
The audio segments have been expertly compiled and edited to create the comfortable atmosphere of someone's home while also displaying professional detail to recording quality and content progression. Each moment of the CDs is filled with warmth, humor, and a deep connection to those who have come before us. Sightlines is a must-have audio book for anyone who appreciates a good love story with the perfect musical accompaniment!
This recorded version of Sightlines: A Poet's Diary expands on the original 90 poems by including brief clips of 40 songs played by her year-old father and his Sunday Afternoon music group. The poems are further set in a wider context with her father's stories, and he reads the poems he wrote that open Sightlines, along with the lines of dialogue that appear in poems sprinkled throughout.
In this unique offering, we glimpse the lives, past and present, of the poet and her family. Together words and songs weave a magical tapestry of myriad threads, recounting family folklore in the warm timbres of Riehl's quiet-spoken voice, each story-poem set in the lively rhythms of fiddles, guitars and mandolins, music reminiscent of a bygone era.
The sometimes slightly discordant notes of the violin merely add to the beauty of the tales told. This series of poems and songs is a memoir. It is also a series of love poems, composed in memory and celebration of three people and two places Riehl loves. She traces the treasured reminiscences of a childhood shared with her two older siblings--her sister, Julia Ann, and her brother, Gary, tenderly watched over by loving parents. Her attentiveness to detail is evident in the images and words which reflect her considered awareness of who she is and where she comes from. Here is where Riehl composes the haunting and lyrical songs to her sister, tragically killed in an automobile accident, an experience so devastating that almost every succeeding poem is written in reference, either directly or obliquely, to it.
The mother and father captured on her pages are our mothers and fathers, the love she expresses for them is the love we feel for our own. One striking feature of Riehl's poetry is the unmistakeable sense of presence that the author brings to her subject matter. Pick any poem from the book, and almost immediately the reader comes face to face, as it were, with the poet.
She recounts, sometimes in devastating and searingly honest detail, her mother's progressive dance towards death. She is not afraid to open herself to the suffering of returning and re-living the death of her sister, a tragedy that changed everything.
Janine tells Offred that her friend Moira is dead. On the way home, Ofglen tells Offred that she had a wife and son, and warns her there is an Eye in the Waterford house. Offred affirms to herself that her true name is June and that she intends to survive to find her daughter. Offred and Ofglen go shopping, and they reveal more personal information about themselves to each other.
While they are walking, they see St. Patrick's Cathedral in Manhattan to try to "erase" the fact that it ever existed. When Offred asks how Ofglen knows this information, she reveals that she is part of a resistance movement against the government, but Offred declines to join.
Offred and other Handmaids visit a home to witness the birth of Ofwarren Janine 's child, named Angela by the Puttnams, but Charlotte by Ofwarren. In flashbacks, June Offred remembers the birth of her and Luke's daughter, Hannah. At that time healthy births were already rare, and a woman who tried to kidnap baby Hannah was arrested. Warily, Offred goes to the Commander's office, but he just wants to play Scrabble , to her relief.
The next day, when Offred prepares to tell Ofglen what happened that night, a different woman introduces herself as Ofglen. In flashbacks, the rise of Gilead is detailed. June and all the other women at her office were fired, and the government froze women's bank accounts and ruled they could no longer own property. In the present, Serena takes Offred to see Ofwarren and the baby, and Offred fears Ofwarren is delusional.
Offred eventually reveals she knew Ofglen was gay and for this, Aunt Lydia shocks Offred with a cattle prod. Before she can leave the room, Offred quotes one of the Beatitudes from the Bible , which would have earned her a much more serious beating, but Serena intervenes, believing that Offred is pregnant. When Offred later tells Serena that she's not pregnant, Serena angrily locks her in her room.
In a flashback, June and Moira attend a protest against the new laws amidst automatic gunfire and explosives. In the present, Ofglen and the Martha she's in a relationship with are charged with "gender treachery". The fertile Ofglen receives a lesser sentence, but the Martha is executed by hanging as Ofglen watches, sobbing and horrified. Later, Ofglen now referred to by her "old" name, Emily , to her grief and anger, undergoes female genital mutilation surgery as explained by Aunt Lydia. Banished to her room, Offred retreats to her closet where she finds what appears to be a Latin phrase, Nolite Te Bastardes Carborundorum , scratched discreetly into the wall.
When Rita, the Commander's housekeeper, finds Offred lying on the closet floor, Offred tells her that she fainted. Serena then has Offred sent to the hospital for a check-up. During the examination the physician remarks that the Commander is most likely sterile, as is common. He offers to personally impregnate her but she declines. June and Moira plan to escape via train to Boston, which has safe houses. Moira manages to catch the train without June, who lets Moira know it's okay. June is later caught and punished by having her feet whipped. Commander Waterford has an unsuccessful Ceremony night with Offred, but later that night, they have another game of Scrabble.
She asks him about the Latin phrase, and he tells her it means, Don't let the bastards grind you down.
When she inquires about the previous Offred, he tells her that she killed herself because life was unbearable. He then releases Offred from her solitary confinement. Serena suggests to Offred that she have sex with Nick in case Commander Waterford is sterile.
Later that day, Serena leads Offred up to Nick's room and waits by the door while Offred and Nick have detached sex. Flashbacks detail Luke and June's first meeting and courtship. At the grocery store, Offred talks to the original Ofglen, now called Ofsteven, but Ofsteven is not as responsive as she used to be.
During a Ceremony night, the Commander touches Offred's thigh, which she later tells him never to do again. In their ensuing conversation, the Commander admits that while they thought they were building a better world, they knew that "better never means better for everyone. At an open-air market, Offred questions Ofsteven about the resistance group called Mayday. Ofsteven jumps behind the steering wheel of a security car and drives erratically around the plaza. She hits a guard, and is caught and put into a black van. Offred returns to Nick's coach house alone, and they have passionate sex.
Mexican trade delegates visit the Commander's home to evaluate the effects of the Gilead cultural movement. The female head of the delegation questions Offred about her experience, but she lies, saying that she is happy. Offred visits the Commander's office later, but there is tension. She reluctantly obeys his demand to kiss him, but ferociously brushes her teeth afterward. The Handmaids and children are then taken to a function to demonstrate Gilead's success. Offred's friend remarks that the delegates are only interested in fertile women.
The next day, as the delegates are leaving, Offred tells them the brutal truth about Gilead. She pleads for their help, but in response, the Mexican ambassador explains her own country's dire situation. However, the ambassador's assistant quietly claims June's husband is alive and that he can deliver a message to Luke.
A flashback details Serena and Fred's life at the beginnings of the Gilead movement when Serena was a conservative cultural activist with passion and intelligence equal to her husband's. Serena Joy wrote a book about her beliefs, titled A Woman's Place. However, after the takeover, she is completely shut out of the new government planning and accepts her new limited role in the society she helped create. A copy of her book is seen being thrown out with the trash. A flashback chronicles Luke's story after he becomes separated from his wife and daughter.
Luke is shot by Gileadan guards, but he escapes when the ambulance crashes, and he takes some medical supplies. He reaches a small abandoned town and, after passing out from his wounds, is rescued by a resistance group traveling to Canada. These survivors included a Roman Catholic nun , a seemingly mute escaped Handmaid, a gay man, and a daughter of a US Army soldier.
A further flashback shows Luke, June, and their daughter Hannah before they were separated. June and Luke are helped by Mr. Whitford, a man who knew June's mother. He leaves them at a secluded cabin in the woods while he arranges documentation for them to escape to Canada. Later, a local hunter tells them Whitford has been caught and hanged, but the hunter helps them cross the border.
While in the main administrative office, Luke receives the letter from June, which reads "I love you so much. Commander Waterford gifts Offred with makeup and a dress as he is taking her out for the night. Nick drives them to Boston to an underground brothel , where sex workers known as "Jezebels" work. Offred spots Moira working in the club, and they briefly reunite.
Nick trades drugs and pregnancy tests for alcohol with one of the brothel's Marthas. Offred goes to see Moira again, and she explains to Offred how Quakers tried to help her escape but were caught. No one gets out. Flashbacks detail how Nick got involved with the Gilead movement and how he became an Eye after reporting a Commander for breaking protocol with his Handmaids. There are other flashbacks to the suicide of the previous Offred, with Serena pointedly saying to her husband, "What did you think was going to happen?
Offred receives a gift from Serena, a music box. The episode closes with Offred etching "You are not alone" into the closet wall. Ofwarren's daughter is handed over to Commander Putnam and his wife, and Ofwarren is transferred to another couple and renamed Ofdaniel. During the first Ceremony night with her new Commander, Ofdaniel forcefully stops it. At the market, Alma pulls Offred aside, tells her that she is involved with the resistance group Mayday, and requests that Offred retrieve a package from the bar at Jezebel's.
Offred convinces Waterford to take her to Jezebel's again that night. After Offred and Waterford have sex in their room, Waterford presents Moira, as he believes they have a sexual attraction. Offred asks Moira to retrieve the package, but she refuses, seemingly resigned to her fate. The next day Offred is taken to a bridge where Ofdaniel is standing on the edge with baby Charlotte, while Gileadan guards, the Putnams, the Waterfords, and Aunt Lydia stand fearfully by.
Ofdaniel shouts that Commander Putnam promised to leave his wife for her. Offred convinces Ofdaniel to give her the child, and Ofdaniel then jumps into the icy water below. Later, while Ofdaniel lies comatose in the hospital, Commander Putnam is led away by guards. When Serena Joy tries to offer comfort to Mrs. Putnam, she reminds Serena of the first Offred's fate, causing Serena to doubt her husband's loyalty.
At the market, Offred is given a package by the butcher, sent by Moira from Jezebel's. At the brothel, Moira kills a client and takes his clothes, then jubilantly drives off in his car. After Serena discovers Fred's trips to Jezebel's, she slaps Offred hard and forces her to take a pregnancy test.
Serena then angrily accuses her husband, telling him the child is not his. Upon learning the news, Nick shares a brief, tender moment with Offred. Serena takes Offred to where Hannah now lives, but Offred is kept in the car, and unable to attract her daughter's attention. Serena warns Offred that Hannah will be cared for as long as the unborn child is safe. Fred participates in Commander Putnam's trial advocating leniency, but Mrs.
Putnam wants the harshest punishment possible, and ultimately Putnam's left arm is amputated at the elbow. The package from Jezebel's contains letters from women who have lost family members and been enslaved in the Gilead takeover. The Handmaids hesitate, and Ofglen No. Offred, then the other Handmaids, drop their stones. One of the guards threatens to kill Offred, but Aunt Lydia saves her, although assuring the handmaids that there will be consequences. Not long afterward, a black van comes for Offred.
Nick urges her to trust him and go with them. Offred's transfer is unusual, as neither of the Waterfords have any idea this would be happening. As Offred leaves, she whispers to Rita where to find the hidden letters. In a side story, Moira reaches Canada, is granted asylum there as a refugee, and is reunited with Luke. Offred and other handmaids are taken to Fenway Park , where they are made to believe they will be hanged, but it turns out to be a ruse to frighten them.
During another punishment, Offred is freed after Aunt Lydia is told of her pregnancy. When she rejects a meal Aunt Lydia gives her, she is shown a pregnant handmaid, Ofwyatt, chained in a prison room due to her attempt to kill herself by drinking drain cleaner. Offred agrees to eat, and during her meal Aunt Lydia, who had told her that her friends would be punished for their disobedience, but her pregnancy would mean that she would be exempted, brings the other handmaids into the room. One by one they are burned with a gas flame.
Later, Offred is at a pregnancy check-up, where she is visited by Fred and Serena, but afterwards finds a key in one of her boots, which she uses to escape to a van parked underneath the hospital. The van drops her off to a safe house in Back Bay , where she meets Nick, while Fred authorizes a highly resourced search for her. He tells her to change out of her handmaid outfit, and to cut her hair.
After stripping off her handmaid's dress, she burns it before cutting the red cattle tag out of her ear. In flashbacks throughout the episode, Hannah is admitted to the hospital for having a fever while in school; June is questioned by one of the hospital workers about giving Hannah medication to bypass the school's fever policy, as well as about June and Luke's fitness as parents. Later, they arrive home to a news story about the Capitol Building and the White House being attacked.
June has been transported to the abandoned former headquarters of The Boston Globe , another safe place arranged by Mayday. A commander's wife arrives at the Colonies and is not welcomed by the unwomen: Emily befriends her and finds that she was taken to the colonies for committing a "sin of the flesh. Emily blames her for "holding a woman down while her husband rapes her".
Janine arrives at the Colonies, where she is briefly greeted by Emily. Nick visits June and she gets upset when he tells her she needs to wait for several weeks before she can leave because everyone is looking for her. Nick ends up giving her the keys to a car and a gun but she decides to stay, and they have sex. In a flashback, after the attack on the Capitol Building and the White House, Emily is told by her boss, Professor Dan, that she will not be teaching the following semester at the university, giving her a lower profile to avoid attracting criticism for her sexual orientation.
Professor Dan is later seen hanged at the university with the word "faggot" spray painted underneath him. While Emily, along with her wife Sylvia and son Oliver, attempt to emigrate to Canada , she is unable to leave the country because their same-sex marriage is no longer recognized, and it becomes known that she is the biological mother of Oliver. June makes a news-clipping memorial for The Boston Globe employees who were executed at the newspaper's former headquarters and prays to God to send an angel to watch over it.
Having spent two months at The Boston Globe offices, June has found evidence in their archives of the early emergence of the Gilead movement. She is abruptly moved to a different place where she meets Omar, who tells her he is bringing her to a safe house near an airstrip in order to fly to Canada. He receives a message that the safe house has been compromised, and tries to leave without her, but she stands in front of his van to make him take her. He takes her to his apartment, where she meets his wife, Heather, and their son, Adam.
Left alone when his family goes to church, June finds a hidden Qur'an and prayer rug under the bedsprings; Omar and his family do not return. She dons Heather's Econowife outfit and leaves the apartment, blending in with other Econowives. After a train ride, June runs into the woods. She realizes she has no way of rescuing Hannah and advances to the airstrip that Omar had told her of; however, the plane is intercepted before take-off, the pilot is executed, and June and another fugitive are apprehended by the Guardians.
Meanwhile, Moira, now living with Luke and Erin who is no longer mute in Canada, gives a tour to a new co-worker but he has a breakdown, traumatized by what he did as a Guardian. When she grew up, Holly was disappointed at June's career choices and plan to marry Luke, hoping that she would have been an activist.
Moira and June learned during their training at the Red Center that Holly had been declared an Unwoman and was sent to the Colonies to be worked to death. June is taken back and chained in a room where Aunt Lydia explains that she must choose between this imprisonment, followed by execution after the birth of her child, or return as a handmaid to the Waterfords. She chooses the latter and is under close supervision from Lydia. The Waterfords, who still employ Nick, publicly treat Offred's disappearance as a kidnapping, but privately Serena is furious and grabs Offred by the throat.
Rita returns the letters she found and tells Offred that she will no longer be involved. A baby shower is held for Serena, incorporating prayer and a ritual binding of Offred to Serena. Offred learns from Alma that Ofglen's tongue was removed for speaking up to save Ofwarren Janine as she was about to be stoned and that Mayday has now gone silent. Aunt Lydia takes Offred out to show her what is presumed to be Omar's hanging corpse. She tells June that Omar's wife, Heather, is now a handmaid and that their child, Adam, was given away to another family. Aunt Lydia tells Offred that this was her fault, and Offred accepts the blame.
In a flashback, June sees Luke's first wife Annie, who tells her that they made wedding vows before God, but Luke rejects her attempts to come between him and June. A few years later, Annie sees Luke and June in a restaurant with their child, Hannah. Offred has collapsed emotionally under the knowledge of Omar's family's fate.
June prays that Hannah forget her. Ignoring Nick the following day, Offred appears to be conforming to the expectations of a handmaid. Offred is very subdued, and starts to burn the letters she had been keeping for Mayday. She notices vaginal bleeding, which continues and gets worse but does not inform anyone, although Rita notices her unsteadiness.
Nick notices Offred's apparent depression and lets Mrs.