From Library Journal
These startling poems work and rework the poet's experience of her father dying from cancer. Many take place at his deathbed, detailing the physical horror of the disease as if to exorcise it: "When they empty out his catheter bag,/ pouring the pale, amber fluid/ into the hospital measuring cup, it is/neither good nor bad, it is only/ the body." But at its heart, this book is about the poet's coming to terms with a father she has hated: an alcoholic, divorced from her mother, and at times cruel and remote. Olds handles this very difficult terrain directly, without sentimentality: "I would have traded/ places with anyone raised on love,/but how would anyone raised on love/bear this death?" At its best, her work calls to mind James Wright's stunning leaps from the physical into prayer: "Yes the tears came/ out like juice and sugar from the fruit--/ the skin thins and breaks and rips, there are/ laws on this earth and we live by them." Psalm-like, these poems make beauty from pain without softening it. For most collections.
- Ellen Kaufman, Dewey Ballantine Law Lib., New York
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.
- Ellen Kaufman, Dewey Ballantine Law Lib., New York
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.
