Painting Over the Growth Chart

Dan Rattelle's Painting Over the Growth Chart is an accomplished and engaging collection, shot through with a recurrent sense of dislocation, of "not getting there from here," dispelled by vivid moments of transcendence, as in "Believer's Baptism," when the "grave was swept away" and water ran "like blood down your thigh." Rattelle displays a keenly felt awareness of life as it is lived and lost, as in the touching title poem, when childhood growth notches that "bicker up the door jamb" are painted over, so "any sign they ever lived here is blotted out." These appealing poems hang between hope and anguish, always reaching for consolation in friendship, fond memories, faith, and a warming glass of cheer. Like the potter he celebrates, who "pulls, as though from nothing, / the cup," Rattelle summons memorable poem after memorable poem.

-Ernest Hilbert, author of Storm Swimmer, and Winner of the 2023 Meringoff Poetry Award from the Association of Literary Scholars and Critics.

Although punctuated by some vivid "postcards" from Scotland, Dan Rattelle's book is rooted in New England, offering a searching view of the region and its people that is unsparing yet humane. His work is formally various; he excels both in cleanly sculpted free verse and in adroitly rhymed stanzas. Throughout, no words are wasted and every word tells. Some lyrics read like narrative fragments haunted by what has been withheld from the page; others, like the brilliant series on tools and implements, invest their inanimate subjects with the power of heritage and even streaks of personality. With forebears like Frost unavoidably in the background, Rattelle's first book revivifies traditional forms and scenes with exacting craft and distinctive insights. He has followed what Frost called "the old way to be new," and his reward is equally that of the reader.

-Robert B. Shaw, author of Emily Dickinson Professor of English Emeritus, Mount Holyoke College

Dan Rattelle earned his MFA at the University of St Andrews, but other than his too-brief stay there he is a lifelong resident of Western Massachusetts and has no plans to leave. Painting Over the Growth Chart is his first full-length poetry collection and is a version of his MFA Thesis, The Meetinghouse. He currently manages two cemeteries in his hometown.