We're Always Proving Who We Are...

The word ossuary, the dictionary informs me, comes from both the Latin osseus, meaning bony, and the Greek osteon, meaning bone. An ossuary itself is any container used for the burial or disposal of human bones, as in an urn or coffin. One can therefore infer that anything which goes under then name Ossuary is likely to lean in the direction of the funereal, macabre, and somber, which perhaps doesn't draw one in as one might like, if one, like me, shies away from reading in the macabre direction, because depression doesn't really need an extra boost. It's always a delight to be pleasantly surprised. Ossuary, the newest book of poetry by poet JoSelle Vanderhooft, is a banquet of textures and word-induced images, driven forward through an intimate and sophisticated crafting of the English language. This isn't to say that it's a book of breezy sunshiney poems in the ilk of Dr. Seuss, far from it, but there is gold to be found in a little exploration of the emotion and imagery of bones.
( Onward, gentle readers )