Rate this book

Stay, Illusion: Poems (2013)

by Lucie Brock-Broido(Favorite Author)

3.94 of 5 Votes: 1

ISBN

0307962024 (ISBN13: 9780307962027)

languge

English

genre

Poetry

publisher

Knopf

review 1: 'The smaller the light to write to becomes, the more / I have to say to you.' 'Lie here with me in snow.' This collection feels heavy, winsome, intelligent, like a mosaic, sometimes incomprehensible - all of which are ok by me. There are more than a handful of poems here I look forward to returning to (especially 'For a Snow Leopard in October'). Also I think you'll have to agree that the author photo is nothing short of epic. Some themes: dead father, animals, darkness/light, middle of the country, found notes - each section seems to have recurring motifs, which make the collection even more interesting.
review 2: A bit about how I came to pick-up Lucie Brock-Broido's latest: It's been a year of screaming dullness for me. It began with a friend - the talented,... more too talented and too romantic and too everything kind, dying for reasons very much connected to his twin afflictions of talent and romance. This was the second time I'd seen this happen in as many years and the repetition compounded the message: That vision isn't just seeing, it's finding a way to survive all you've seen.In any event, my talented friends kept dying or destroying themselves, while I, way less talented and far more terrified, spent the year trying to play by the rules for once. I fought for a dull job and even the fight was dull. I wrapped myself in the things that comforted me and I tried my hand at being a responsible adult.A younger me would have become bored and rejected this year as stasis and stagnation. Lucky for me, I'm older. This year was healing. I learned, and probably still am learning, what my limits are. I used to believe that limits were things imposed by others, rules to be broken. They can be that, but more importantly, limits are the boundaries you define; what you will accept and reject, what is recognizably you (to you) and what, even when imposed on you by others, needs rejection.Which is a long way of getting to the heart of "Stay, Illusion." After a year of reading serious and practical things, I needed some poetry and a chance recommendation led me to this collection, which, like all the best writing, spoke directly to me and my situation. These are poems about limits (private gardens, prisons and isolated homes figure prominently) and how we define them externally through language and internally through our sense of self intersecting with our sense of those around us, our histories (both private and shared) and with the world-at-large. It's not poetry that moralizes, but rather poetry that explores the ambiguity of life with a clear-eyed and tender voice.It's also some damn fine writing. Even if you don't like poetry, give it a shot. less

Download links for: Stay, Illusion: Poems

Advertising