Big Breath of a Wish

Kim Fahner is a poet and the author of You Must Imagine the Cold Here.

Dedicated to the poet’s daughter, Emma, Big Breath of a Wish traces
the evolution of language and meaning through a child’s growing
awareness of herself and the world around her. Emma’s voyage into the
expression of sound is chronicled in such poems as “Primitive,” in
which “Emma is learning to growl: a tremble primitive, / or machine; a
below-language sound.” In the final poem, “Me,” Emma “points to
/ the middle of her chest, uses me / correctly now.” Between these two
poems Harrison has recorded a stunning evolution, from his daughter’s
experiment in (and with) sound, to her recognition that sound can lead
to meaning through language.

In “The D’Au,” Harrison writes: “In the perfect language poem
the act of reading alone / is the experience that makes the line
work.” To read Big Breath of a Wish is to appreciate the importance of
sound in our lives. The idea of sound as poetry in its own right is
expressed in the lovely poem “She Danced,” in which the poet writes:
“She danced / before she could walk / She sang before she could speak
/ She made a poem before she could utter a sentence.” Big Breath of a
Wish is a wonderful book.