| "As the title suggests this is a sequence of articulations
on the enduring themes of loss, separation, and messy love: love is
always messy. But Gardner does not indulge in the easy clichés
of introspection or confession: here she conjures up an hypnotic,
somnambulistic symphony of exquisite desolation. 'No man is an island'
wrote John Donne but Gardner knows that is only a half truth,
especially if you are a woman. Against a backdrop of the sea the
breaking waters of waves and birth crash through these
pages with a contradictory melancholic joy. Her island is inescapable
but it has a bird and it is shot through with the vitality of colour
and the colour of tenacious life. Disturbingly beautiful." --Geraldine Monk "Architecturally wild and sturdy, Gardner's book comes from a place beyond fear and despair, from a place of deep proclivity, which is where poetry becomes ancient, modern, and new." --Elizabeth Treadwell "Susana Gardner’s [lapsed insel weary] is an extended social lyric of longing that refuses isolation because the "grandmany" is all around, in ancestry and memory and books and and shared future. Gardner’s is a language that recovers itself—lace re-tatted, a house rebuilt—and there is grandeur in the recovery. This is poetry full of heart and intelligence." --Carolyn Forché |
|
|
|
|