How to read this book:
Go to bed and pull up the covers.
Read the poems aloud, irreverently, flat, just skimming
until one catches your heart.
Have a colored pen ready to star it for future reading.
And read on. Take a
nap if you need to.
Most of us don’t read a whole book of poetry these
days. It’s a lost art. It’s like eating a whole jar of olives.
Occasionally there’s a page of prose from someone’s
memoir. Herself a writer of memoir,
Barbara Abercrombie bypasses 200 pages to give you the one golden page.
This book is for anyone with a loss. If, like me, you don’t have a “love of my
life,” skip the sappy readings about lovers and find those that probe the
mystery of death: “Where are you now?
…What are you now? Air? Mist?
Dust? Light?” asks Dorianne Laux.
Anyone who has lost a child to death or drugs, perhaps a
parent to accident or Alzheimer’s or Covid-19, will tear up at a few points in
this book. One feels less alone surrounded
by these open hearts, from Mark Doty to Madeleine L’Engle to Joy Harjo to Rumi
and of course Mary Oliver.
Order two copies--give one to a friend.
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