Synopsis "Psalm to Whom(e)"
In Psalm to Whom(e), the restless and astonishing DianeGlancy continues to break new ground with a hybrid collection of personal writingsthat considers the relationship between place and faith; the need for movement, stability, and inner exploration; and the search for home. Psalm to Whom(e) centers on Kansas and rural Texas, placesthat usually see the underside of planes. Glancy focuses on geography. History. Origins. Memory. Faith. Once in a while, in desperation, she offers a prayer to whom(e)ver isthere. Glancy stretches and pulls the language to see behind the words: oldNative thought patterns, for instance, or echoes of Gertrude Stein. She takesus with her into museums, churches, and national parks, shuttling freelybetween personal, cultural, and spiritual history, narration and poeticexploration. Psalm to Whom(e) defines the world as a place on which tomark, as evidenced in the earliest pictographs. Embedded in the markings on cave walls and rock facings are circles andspirals in which the impulses to move, to travel, to migrate, to explore one'sown inner wilderness and solitude are homed. The "whom(e)" is in an essay, "Among My Friends Are Lettersof the Alphabet." "As a loner I write alot because I have to have something to do and the letters of the alphabetalways are there." The isolation of Covid may have driven her farther back intohistory, she says. Into the beginning of faith on the prairie. Into her own believing on her grandfather'sfarm and her own father's work in the stockyards. "Sometimes I add letters towords. As an 'e' as in 'whome' becausethen I see home, for which I always am looking."
