Wrested from the coppery, keen claws of existential extremity, Blessings and Inclemencies, Constance Merritt's second collection of poems, is conventional in its forms and radical in its reaching back to the ground of being and to the originality and immediacy of our first encounters with language. Forgoing the common hedge of irony, these poems, without apology, place their bets on elemental language, intentional grace, and tradition in all its fruitfulness and freight.
Wrested from the coppery, keen claws of existential extremity, Blessings and Inclemencies, Constance Merritt's second collection of poems, is conventi...
Relying most heavily on music and metaphor, syntax and diction, Two Rooms explores the conflicting claims of life and art, world and word, cultural heritage and cultural affinities, through the sacral, erotic, and creative imagination. By the light of these dark lyrics, Constance Merritt searches for a path, a sign, a respite -- perhaps love or death or God or insight, perhaps radical transformation or a simple good night's sleep. In these poems, by turns passionate, sinuous, playful and grave, a deep and abiding trust in "the plain sense of things" and intractable longing for the "lush,...
Relying most heavily on music and metaphor, syntax and diction, Two Rooms explores the conflicting claims of life and art, world and word, cultural...
