Soap Is Political (e-book) (used book) | Ruth Goring | bookbook.eu

Description

In these unusual and evocative poems, Ruth Goring exposes a Colombia far more complex, anguished, and painfully beautiful than anything you will read in the news. The tragic and horrifying become everyday, and the everyday is revealed in its tragedy and horror. We are taken to the heart of Colombia's war against the poor with a language that is lush and compelling. If you want to experience Colombia's conflicts with all of your senses as well as your intellect, Goring's poetry will take you there.--Avi Chomsky


In Soap Is Political, Ruth Goring enters deeply into the lives and deaths of the people of Colombia, interweaving Spanish and English, torture and redemption in a richly imagistic and eloquent account of the country's recent history. Profoundly informed by the author's own experience as both a child and an adult, this compelling book beautifully balances the difficulty of writing about violent political conflict with a joyful appreciation of the life and culture it chronicles.--Martha Collins


"Under a pressing sun / you live damp amid / damp trees, . . . but quícharo fish / lies on your plate like salted / angel's wings." Such earthy paradoxes in Ruth Goring's new collection extend her loving lament to mountains and rivers, machetes, the odors in rough blankets. Soap is not just political: it is richly and variously sensual. It is hungry life swimming through your head or writhing through your gut--damned brave life. Goring's passion for Colombia and its people, at times reminiscent of Lorca, engulfs the reader in unbearably beautiful images of pain and injustice:
My love in the dead groves, beyond
the murderous palms: I wanted you
without poison, I wanted you starry
with milk and pendulous leaves.
This book is itself "a dream tree / pungent of everything."--Helen Degen Cohen