Critical Commentary

Regarding Keeping Still: "Hayna's musical poems draw us into her world, long before we grasp the art of any one piece. Thus lyric after lyric can risk speaking of the fragility of existence - of risk itself, of loss and renewal and joy and death. Yet each poem does this in a voice so clear and calm that we are seduced into affirming our mortal vitality, as if we've "not heard of snow." Hayna frees us to say 'yes' to life." John C. Jacobs, Loyola University, Chicago