These poems mine deeply for a richness in both language and imagery that cuts against the flatness of much contemporary poetry. With deep roots in nature poetry like Mary Oliver's, as well as in memories of childhood and the excited and worried journeys of adult life, The Tears of Things renders the world in full-they are what we find everywhere we look.-Jesse Graves, author of Merciful Days and Tennessee Landscape with Blighted Pine

In precise language and detailed imagery, Catherine Hamrick traces cycles of human illness and loss over four seasons. The persistence of memory and the insistence on perseverance-to understand, to make peace, to come out on the other side-is rewarded by a fifth season, a lagniappe of acceptance and joy.-Jay Lamar, editor of Old Enough: Southern Women Artists and Writers on Creativity and Aging

The Tears of Things is a stunning journey into Catherine Hamrick's relationship with nature. Her beautiful, sensual poems waste no words, evoking images that stir something deeper. Take your time experiencing these rich creations. You will want to taste them more than once.-T.K. Thorne, author of The Magic City Stories Trilogy and Behind the Magic Curtain

If you only have time for a single volume of memorable and emotionally engaging poetry, make it The Tears of Things: Poems by Catherine Hamrick. Her free verse compositions paint word picture images that truly resonate with the reader. A compendium of wordsmithing raised to an impressive level of literary excellence, The Tears of Things: Poems is especially and unreservedly recommended for community and college/university library Contemporary American Poetry collections.-Midwest Book Review

Catherine Hamrick uses the medium of poetry to help her through many of life's challenges, by writing in various formats the emotions deeply felt at that particular moment of time. ... These are the hidden gems of life that make the intolerable, tolerable and life slightly less serious. The beautifully written "House Finches" is more prose than poetry but celebrates the birth of new life, a season and garden emerging from the harshness of winter.The Tears of Thingsis not a work to be taken lightly; it is one that should be read carefully, at leisure, piece by piece to allow the sentiment to resonate, offering a time to reflect on the vagaries of life; to accept that all things do eventually pass.-Blue Wolf Reviews