Birds of Sorrow and Joy: New and Selected Poems, 1970-2000Poetry. "As beautiful as [these poems] are on paper, they are musical in the way old-fashioned rhyming poems are: they go into you and stay. Her courage to tell the truth wins our confidence. I don't know of any books of poetry that address subjects that are so difficult to talk about (a son's death, abuse of another son. the violence in her marriage). These poems skirt the pitfalls of autobiographical writing because of their unsparing look at the speaker, and because of their lucidity in form, emotion, and idea. The poems are intimate., yet the language is so precise, the forms so exquisitely wrought that it gives each a feeling of sculptural weight. of iron or clay"-Toni Derricotte. |
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