About Good Friday,[1] author Jonathan Holden remarked: "In his magnificent poem 'Momentum,' as throughout Good Friday, the poet Philip Heldrich, like the late W. C. Williams, demonstrates audaciously how, while 'pulled and tugged in the swirl of rush hour traffic,' we can, out of the American quotidian, locate and frame that which is beautiful."
For Heldrich, lover of words, there is beauty to be found at the local dump: magazines (Kansas Farmer), discarded beverage bottles ("Golden Sound Basil Seed Drink"), even machine names (the "cram-a-lot" baler is a favorite).
A finely crafted ode to target practice and male bonding set in a high country meadow in Colorado quietly evolves into a memorial for a lost friend.
Another piece perfectly captures the surreal nature of the academic conference, made even more dreamlike by taking place in Norman, Oklahoma, five hours before a championship football game.
Driving around "out there," whether it be Disneyland or the Central Plains, the author puts pen to paper, accurately capturing the essence of American culture."