Description: Since 1986, Rachel Blau DuPlessis has been writing a long poem in canto-like sections, grouped in nineteen units. The individual poems fold over each other, using repeated elements to construct a sense of memory and traces or reminders of prior statements. Their themes involve history, gender, mourning and hope, all in "socio-twisty" language. Among their themes are awe, astonishment, skepticism, mourning, pleasure.
Review Quotes: DuPlessis has created one of the most sustained and magnificent meditations written by a contemporary poet on loss, presence, and the haunting persistence of language to redeem what has vanished.--Patrick Pritchett "Jacket "