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Public Poetry, Kevin Walzer's meditations on poetry, publishing, business, and other creative pursuits
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Kevin Walzer, a poet, poetry publisher, husband, and father.
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Fri, 20 Jul 2007
Book of the Day: Terrain by Julia Lisella
Julia Lisella's Terrain is a haunting book, part lyric and part narrative, about grieving and loss. The poems are at times oblique, at times blunt, and always engrossing.
The bare simplicity of this poem is characteristic:
Hypothesis
What if it had been you who said
once you'd thought of killing yourself,
that more than once you'd thought
you hated your life but every way to end it
seemed too horrible, for me? What if
it had been you who cried past midnight,
each night holding your belly or your chest
as if your insides would fall out?
And what if it had been you
who held on to the possibility of dying
like a person who holds on to the memory
of an unworthy ex-love?
What if it were me who suggested,
arm's length away, that maybe a drug,
some small pill could keep you sane,
keep you near me, could make you love your life?
What if it were you who'd said
you'd find your own way back?
And once you had done it,
come back so whole, so entirely,
I could not recognize
ever having almost lost you?
Quiet, yet powerful, Terrain is a book to delve into slowly.