THE FRAGILITY OF WINTER, poetry by Irene Fick
Publication Date: March 15, 2025
Paperback, 78 pages
ISBN: 978-1-956782-97-4
Irene Fick’s expansive new poetry collection The Fragility of Winter is a triumph of deft, often humorous, and always careful observation. Fick creates interconnected narratives that draw from her own Italian heritage and middle-class upbringing. Through poems like “I Lost My Aunt At Kmart,” Fick breathes life into family members long gone, musing, “As we leave Kmart, I wonder: how did she / disappear so easily? How could I have lost her?” This is a dance between grounding detail and thoughtful questioning, what Fick does so well—she distills the beauty found in day-to-day life. “We are caught in this avalanche of ache, this dried-up sea of broken glass,” she writes in “A Narrative Poet Lost in the Lyric Moment.” Yet, despite the pain that often accompanies the raw truth of recollection, Fick finds a path to comfort and acceptance, not despair. She assures her readers, but perhaps more importantly, Fick seems to assure herself, “…what I wouldn’t give / to return to my life, its uneasy turbulence, / its precious, beautiful mess.”
Praise for Irene Fick & The Fragility of Winter
I’ve been a fan of Irene Fick’s poetry forever; but I never expected to be so taken and stunned by her new book, The Fragility of Winter. Fick’s family becomes my family: a mother in a bowling outfit, suddenly not depressed; an aunt barricading herself away from imaginary predators; a grandmother we see through life; supplies of sympathy cards from the dollar store. The truth and complexity of these characters—sometimes sad, sometimes hilarious—are made rich with the prosody that good poetry can bring. There’s not a more authentic and moving book written this year, because the speaker/poet becomes a kind of antihero, amazed at her own world, making every page a delight. The child, in one poem, says she wishes that someone would ask “How was your day?” Well, Irene Fick, your day is magnificent!
—Grace Cavalieri, Maryland Poet Laureate
The Fragility of Winter is a book about life and “its precious, beautiful mess.” Author Irene Fick declares herself to be “the white space,” not as that all important tool so valuable to poetry, but rather as the placeholder of the spaces in our lives that include love, family, uneasy truces, loss. This is a book about kindness, to animals, to each other, even “Rachel from Cardholder Services,” who has a life beyond the telephone. The Fragility of Winter is an important book for our tumultuous times. A must read.
—Linda Blaskey, author of White Horses
Irene Fick’s The Fragility of Winter is the work of a writer who has come fully into her own, who does not flinch from critical self-assessment, who shares the joys and sorrows of memory – memories of family, failed relationships, and the daily grime and sometimes grimness of daily life, that part of life which is necessary to just getting by, those things which must be done between the writing of poems. Here also is a spark of hope, faith, an indefatigable sense that there will always be an upside, if one can just plug ahead, dig through the debris, the flotsam and jetsam of generations washed up on the shores of her life. Bravo!
—Jamie Brown, publisher, The Broadkill River Press
Irene Fick’s The Fragility of Winter is a splendid book. The poems come to us in the trappings of middle-class life, “black stretch pants/hair high and lacquered, lips painted a deep coral.” But the details—often conveyed with a wonderful sense of humor, sometimes a sense of the ridiculous—tell us something universal about the modest lives lived by all of us. Fick has a natural ability with metaphor, she speaks to us with spontaneous humanity. We join her in picking through the clothing left by a mother or aunt—“the slacks and shirts in shades of green, from chartreuse to shamrock”—and these articles lead us to consider the weight of our shared mortality.
—David Salner, author of Summer Words: New and Selected Poems
About the Author
Irene Fick is the author of The Fragility of Winter (Broadstone Books), The Wild Side of the Window (Main Street Rag) and The Stories We Tell (Broadkill Press). The earlier books received first place awards from the National Federation of Press Women. Irene’s poems have been published in such journals as Delmarva Review, Gargoyle, The Broadkill Review, Pine Row Press, Blue Mountain Review and Willawaw Journal. Her essays have appeared in River Teeth Journal, the Schuylkill Valley Journal, Short Reads and Hippocampus Magazine. In 2025, she was awarded an Individual Artist Fellowship in creative nonfiction from the Delaware Division of the Arts and the Delaware State Arts Council. Irene lives in Lewes, Delaware with her husband, Ed, a retired music teacher. She may be reached at: irenefickpoet.com
Publication Date: March 15, 2025
Paperback, 78 pages
ISBN: 978-1-956782-97-4
Irene Fick’s expansive new poetry collection The Fragility of Winter is a triumph of deft, often humorous, and always careful observation. Fick creates interconnected narratives that draw from her own Italian heritage and middle-class upbringing. Through poems like “I Lost My Aunt At Kmart,” Fick breathes life into family members long gone, musing, “As we leave Kmart, I wonder: how did she / disappear so easily? How could I have lost her?” This is a dance between grounding detail and thoughtful questioning, what Fick does so well—she distills the beauty found in day-to-day life. “We are caught in this avalanche of ache, this dried-up sea of broken glass,” she writes in “A Narrative Poet Lost in the Lyric Moment.” Yet, despite the pain that often accompanies the raw truth of recollection, Fick finds a path to comfort and acceptance, not despair. She assures her readers, but perhaps more importantly, Fick seems to assure herself, “…what I wouldn’t give / to return to my life, its uneasy turbulence, / its precious, beautiful mess.”
Praise for Irene Fick & The Fragility of Winter
I’ve been a fan of Irene Fick’s poetry forever; but I never expected to be so taken and stunned by her new book, The Fragility of Winter. Fick’s family becomes my family: a mother in a bowling outfit, suddenly not depressed; an aunt barricading herself away from imaginary predators; a grandmother we see through life; supplies of sympathy cards from the dollar store. The truth and complexity of these characters—sometimes sad, sometimes hilarious—are made rich with the prosody that good poetry can bring. There’s not a more authentic and moving book written this year, because the speaker/poet becomes a kind of antihero, amazed at her own world, making every page a delight. The child, in one poem, says she wishes that someone would ask “How was your day?” Well, Irene Fick, your day is magnificent!
—Grace Cavalieri, Maryland Poet Laureate
The Fragility of Winter is a book about life and “its precious, beautiful mess.” Author Irene Fick declares herself to be “the white space,” not as that all important tool so valuable to poetry, but rather as the placeholder of the spaces in our lives that include love, family, uneasy truces, loss. This is a book about kindness, to animals, to each other, even “Rachel from Cardholder Services,” who has a life beyond the telephone. The Fragility of Winter is an important book for our tumultuous times. A must read.
—Linda Blaskey, author of White Horses
Irene Fick’s The Fragility of Winter is the work of a writer who has come fully into her own, who does not flinch from critical self-assessment, who shares the joys and sorrows of memory – memories of family, failed relationships, and the daily grime and sometimes grimness of daily life, that part of life which is necessary to just getting by, those things which must be done between the writing of poems. Here also is a spark of hope, faith, an indefatigable sense that there will always be an upside, if one can just plug ahead, dig through the debris, the flotsam and jetsam of generations washed up on the shores of her life. Bravo!
—Jamie Brown, publisher, The Broadkill River Press
Irene Fick’s The Fragility of Winter is a splendid book. The poems come to us in the trappings of middle-class life, “black stretch pants/hair high and lacquered, lips painted a deep coral.” But the details—often conveyed with a wonderful sense of humor, sometimes a sense of the ridiculous—tell us something universal about the modest lives lived by all of us. Fick has a natural ability with metaphor, she speaks to us with spontaneous humanity. We join her in picking through the clothing left by a mother or aunt—“the slacks and shirts in shades of green, from chartreuse to shamrock”—and these articles lead us to consider the weight of our shared mortality.
—David Salner, author of Summer Words: New and Selected Poems
About the Author
Irene Fick is the author of The Fragility of Winter (Broadstone Books), The Wild Side of the Window (Main Street Rag) and The Stories We Tell (Broadkill Press). The earlier books received first place awards from the National Federation of Press Women. Irene’s poems have been published in such journals as Delmarva Review, Gargoyle, The Broadkill Review, Pine Row Press, Blue Mountain Review and Willawaw Journal. Her essays have appeared in River Teeth Journal, the Schuylkill Valley Journal, Short Reads and Hippocampus Magazine. In 2025, she was awarded an Individual Artist Fellowship in creative nonfiction from the Delaware Division of the Arts and the Delaware State Arts Council. Irene lives in Lewes, Delaware with her husband, Ed, a retired music teacher. She may be reached at: irenefickpoet.com
Publication Date: March 15, 2025
Paperback, 78 pages
ISBN: 978-1-956782-97-4
Irene Fick’s expansive new poetry collection The Fragility of Winter is a triumph of deft, often humorous, and always careful observation. Fick creates interconnected narratives that draw from her own Italian heritage and middle-class upbringing. Through poems like “I Lost My Aunt At Kmart,” Fick breathes life into family members long gone, musing, “As we leave Kmart, I wonder: how did she / disappear so easily? How could I have lost her?” This is a dance between grounding detail and thoughtful questioning, what Fick does so well—she distills the beauty found in day-to-day life. “We are caught in this avalanche of ache, this dried-up sea of broken glass,” she writes in “A Narrative Poet Lost in the Lyric Moment.” Yet, despite the pain that often accompanies the raw truth of recollection, Fick finds a path to comfort and acceptance, not despair. She assures her readers, but perhaps more importantly, Fick seems to assure herself, “…what I wouldn’t give / to return to my life, its uneasy turbulence, / its precious, beautiful mess.”
Praise for Irene Fick & The Fragility of Winter
I’ve been a fan of Irene Fick’s poetry forever; but I never expected to be so taken and stunned by her new book, The Fragility of Winter. Fick’s family becomes my family: a mother in a bowling outfit, suddenly not depressed; an aunt barricading herself away from imaginary predators; a grandmother we see through life; supplies of sympathy cards from the dollar store. The truth and complexity of these characters—sometimes sad, sometimes hilarious—are made rich with the prosody that good poetry can bring. There’s not a more authentic and moving book written this year, because the speaker/poet becomes a kind of antihero, amazed at her own world, making every page a delight. The child, in one poem, says she wishes that someone would ask “How was your day?” Well, Irene Fick, your day is magnificent!
—Grace Cavalieri, Maryland Poet Laureate
The Fragility of Winter is a book about life and “its precious, beautiful mess.” Author Irene Fick declares herself to be “the white space,” not as that all important tool so valuable to poetry, but rather as the placeholder of the spaces in our lives that include love, family, uneasy truces, loss. This is a book about kindness, to animals, to each other, even “Rachel from Cardholder Services,” who has a life beyond the telephone. The Fragility of Winter is an important book for our tumultuous times. A must read.
—Linda Blaskey, author of White Horses
Irene Fick’s The Fragility of Winter is the work of a writer who has come fully into her own, who does not flinch from critical self-assessment, who shares the joys and sorrows of memory – memories of family, failed relationships, and the daily grime and sometimes grimness of daily life, that part of life which is necessary to just getting by, those things which must be done between the writing of poems. Here also is a spark of hope, faith, an indefatigable sense that there will always be an upside, if one can just plug ahead, dig through the debris, the flotsam and jetsam of generations washed up on the shores of her life. Bravo!
—Jamie Brown, publisher, The Broadkill River Press
Irene Fick’s The Fragility of Winter is a splendid book. The poems come to us in the trappings of middle-class life, “black stretch pants/hair high and lacquered, lips painted a deep coral.” But the details—often conveyed with a wonderful sense of humor, sometimes a sense of the ridiculous—tell us something universal about the modest lives lived by all of us. Fick has a natural ability with metaphor, she speaks to us with spontaneous humanity. We join her in picking through the clothing left by a mother or aunt—“the slacks and shirts in shades of green, from chartreuse to shamrock”—and these articles lead us to consider the weight of our shared mortality.
—David Salner, author of Summer Words: New and Selected Poems
About the Author
Irene Fick is the author of The Fragility of Winter (Broadstone Books), The Wild Side of the Window (Main Street Rag) and The Stories We Tell (Broadkill Press). The earlier books received first place awards from the National Federation of Press Women. Irene’s poems have been published in such journals as Delmarva Review, Gargoyle, The Broadkill Review, Pine Row Press, Blue Mountain Review and Willawaw Journal. Her essays have appeared in River Teeth Journal, the Schuylkill Valley Journal, Short Reads and Hippocampus Magazine. In 2025, she was awarded an Individual Artist Fellowship in creative nonfiction from the Delaware Division of the Arts and the Delaware State Arts Council. Irene lives in Lewes, Delaware with her husband, Ed, a retired music teacher. She may be reached at: irenefickpoet.com