Departure: Poems

by Rosanna Warren

Book Overview

Ancient and modern eras, sacred and earthly forces, personal and communal mourning are all held in the arc of this exquisite new collection. Named an Honor Book in the 2004 Massachusetts Book Awards, Departure celebrates the marriage of contraries in private poems of difficult love as Rosanna Warren explores intimacy and separation between mother and daughter, husband and wife, artist and muse, woman and demon lover.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0393326810
• ISBN13: 9780393326819
• Release Date: April 2005
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Length: 128 Pages
• Weight: 0.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 5.6" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

An imaginative landscape

In flashes of brilliance, Warren calls forth the image of a god, striding down a hillside "vomiting down/ its loosened jaw of scree." It is in such moments that changes are wrought, but often go unnoticed: "any day, any ordinary hour, when all we see is a peculiar, shivering brilliance in the air like a premonition of migraine; and no one else can see later, how in such a flash, the dark came there." (Arrival) The word "mother" hovers frequently and cannot help but remind of another mother, brought to life on the pages: "facing death, my mother gripped the bedrails but still stared straight ahead- and who was it, finally, who loosened her hands?" (Simile) The words of the poet are incredibly personal, as each line resonates, the shared thoughts brought together, filling the mind with possibilities, with connections and memories. The images evoked by Warren are larger than life, caught in the web of myth, yet made accessible to imagination. Ancient civilization meets the modern world, from archetype to the aching loss of a loved one, classical feet mired in feet of clay. Warren speaks with a singular voice, phrases that capture a moment for eternity: "It is enough, this moment, not to speak. To touch your hand." (Ecologue). Luan Gaines/2005.