Necessary Silence (e-book) (used book) | Lisa C Taylor | bookbook.eu

Description

Lisa C. Taylor's poetry collection explores the range of human vulnerability from a homeless person to a Virgin Mary sighting to strangers meeting in a grocery line, "forgetting how invisible we all are/for most of our lives." In this image rich collection, tones of despair and celebration co-mingle, "a parade of contrast" that shows the resilience of the human spirit.

Through adroit, haunting images, Lisa C. Taylor traces our fraught, and at times dire intersections. At the core of her poetry resides an honesty of awe and a bittersweet awareness of how little we know and how much we care. A poet of both depth and gravity, she never averts her gaze, yet her tone remains tender. (Baron Wormser)

Theodore Roethke wrote, "Art is the means we have of undoing the damage of haste. It is what everything else isn't." Lisa C. Taylor's poems show the importance of slowing down and paying attention, of listening to others, of asking what the deepest self feels. Powerful poems like "Memoir" and "Poseidon" bear witness to those who are damaged by haste, but Necessary Silence also celebrates the body's glad ability to provide at least "temporary shelter" and the mind's readiness to "blossom like wildflowers." Taylor knows that the imagination is the most powerful tool we have for transformation, and in her words, the world is given back to us, radiant. (Ted Deppe)