Description: A poetic exploration of how we carry the past forward: reshaped but never broken.
In Markers and Shrines, Margot Schilpp traces the moments that define us--the losses that strip away our former selves and the resilience that emerges in their wake. These poems illuminate the way the past etches itself onto the future, displaying how experience, no matter how painful, strengthens and redefines us. With lyrical precision and a musician's ear for language, Schilpp crafts a world where memory lingers and meaning deepens. Her unembellished eloquence and eye for striking detail turn the everyday into something enlightening, reminding us that even in loss, there is beauty. Markers and Shrines is a reflection on survival and the unseen forces that shape who we become.Brief description: Margot Schilpp teaches at Southern Connecticut State University and Quinnipiac University. She is the author of four earlier volumes of poetry, including Afterswarm. She lives in New Haven, Connecticut with her husband Jeff Mock, and two daughters, Paula and Leah.
Review Quotes: Previous Praise for Margot Schilpp:
"The abiding interest of these poems are memory and the difficulty of making a self. I read this book as an emotional narrative, the details of the poet's life less important than the spirit in which they are rendered. It's Schilpp's lyrical imagination that I'm most drawn to here: I can feel her, in poem after poem, creating a reality that is shaped most of all by beauty. The poems succeed because they show her struggling to redeem her past. It's a testament to her ability as a poet that I know myself better having read this book. These are beautiful, quietly powerful poems."-- "Bob Hicok"