Before It‘s Light

The 1997 Black Sparrow publication of Lyn Lifshin‘s selected poems, Cold Comfort, brought to national attention, as Small Press reviewer Len Fulton put it, "a poet of substance, range and invention, " one who "everywhere roots for that stripped piece of a life -- usually her own -- that yields the bare emotional atom." The direct, spare, largely autobiographical poems in this generous new collection evoke memories of an unlovely girlhood ("longing to be what every man / would rush to take the gum out of / his mouth to whistle for"); a stormy marriage ("each separation I lost/10 pounds"); self-unsparing love affairs ("we were / like drunks, dying / a little more / every time"); the pain of losing a mother ("holding her while / she moans my hands are / cold, my hair a whip"); the struggle to regain self-sufficiency after bad relationships ("some of / us need to regrow claws, survive / on prey, give up safeness"). And as always, Lifshin‘s poetry trawls deep waters of submerged passion beneath the surface of everyday life, coming up with a teeming, glistening catch. that afternoon an unreal amber light 4 o clock the quietness of oil February blue bowls full of oranges we were spreading honey, butter on new bread our skin nearly touching Even the dark wood glowed.