Reviews
In this tender, harrowing volume, Rachel Eliza Griffiths voices the staggering desolation of daughters who must face that inevitable hollow--the loss of the mother. And although that hollow is the driving force of this collection, it is by no means the whole of it--elegy, unreeled in tender yet fiery vignettes, is paired with haunting and starkly revealing images that amplify the lyric as the poet contemplates the world beyond absence., Rachel Eliza Griffiths' mother died around the same time as mine. As we both mourned, she sent me incandescent words to comfort me, phrases that read like invocations and felt like salves and balms. Her work has always wowed me with its beauty, depth, and luminosity, and there it was also healing me. Radiantly elegiac, this hybrid work of poetry and photographs is one we all need for living, loving, and letting go., These poems are a gift--they remind me that grief can be the ground for transformation. In the midst of Griffiths' loss, a series of metamorphoses occur--like a fairy tale or a myth, the poet transforms into a spider, then a snake, then a hawk, then prey. Then, like a myth, by the end Griffiths' has found her true self--all along we have been in the midst of a song of praise., Rachel Eliza Griffiths' mother died around the same time as mine. As we both mourned, she sent me incandescent words to comfort me, phrases that read like invocations and felt like salves and balms. Her work has always wowed me with its beauty, depth, and luminosity, and there it was also healing me. Radiantly elegiac, this hybrid work of poetry and photographs is one we all need for living, loving, and letting go.--Edwidge Danticat, author of Everything Inside These poems are a gift--they remind me that grief can be the ground for transformation. In the midst of Griffiths' loss, a series of metamorphoses occur--like a fairy tale or a myth, the poet transforms into a spider, then a snake, then a hawk, then prey. Then, like a myth, by the end Griffiths' has found her true self--all along we have been in the midst of a song of praise.--Nick Flynn, author of This Is the Night Our House Will Catch Fire In this tender, harrowing volume, Rachel Eliza Griffiths voices the staggering desolation of daughters who must face that inevitable hollow--the loss of the mother. And although that hollow is the driving force of this collection, it is by no means the whole of it--elegy, unreeled in tender yet fiery vignettes, is paired with haunting and starkly revealing images that amplify the lyric as the poet contemplates the world beyond absence.--Patricia Smith, author of Incendiary Art
