In Broken Blossoms, dead fish become roses, a Chinese restaurant's duck soup teaches us to "love the meat, broth, and the bones" and shattered '60s love beads become seeds, become daisies. The mundane, tragic, ugly, and the beautiful are all here. Hurtt was a hospice RN most of her working life...the need to remember and to be remembered is a lesson she wishes to honor every day. Many of the "hand me down" stories she heard are now poems of lives not to be forgotten. Read these poems carefully...they may initially feel simple until delving into a deeper reading. In a time when empathy feels lacking in both our personal and national lives, Broken Blossoms's poems are a way to connect ourselves into a more humane community, see the world fresh and new, and live on this planet worth savoring and saving.
