Description:
The legendary Margaret Randall's latest work shines as some of her finest poetry yet, with explorations of the many senses of home as a creative act.
Brief description: Margaret Randall (b. New York, 1936) is a poet, essayist, oral historian, translator, photographer, and social activist. She is the author of more than two hundred books. She has received the Medalla al Mérito Literario, awarded by Literatura en el Bravo in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico; the Poet of Two Hemispheres prize by Poesía en Paralelo Cero in Quito, Ecuador; an honorary doctorate of letters from the University of New Mexico; and, the City of Albuquerque's Creative Bravo Award. Randall lives in Albuquerque with her wife, the painter Barbara Byers, and travels extensively to read, lecture, and teach.
Review Quotes:
"These poems are stories built from what the eye photographed and the heart carried in knapsacks across a lifetime. This is Margaret Randall's personal history threaded by dwellings. She writes, 'I am writing / it all down, putting it in books / where it stays safe and willing.' From the heights of a life lived deeply, she writes what she has learned as an artist activist. Home is not something inherited, but an act as creative as writing a poem. This book is a homecoming. I celebrate with you."
- Sandra Cisneros, author of Woman Without Shame"Hers has always been a moral and compassionate imagination. Here in this latest collection of poems, Home, she meditates on all the permutations of that word ... Her voice is the master-builder we need as we rebuild our communities and our lives as a people. Mi casa, su casa, we say, and these poems provide us all with a space to call home."
- Julia Alvarez, author of In the Time of the Butterflies, How the García Girls Lost Their Accents, and The Woman I Kept to Myself"I can't think of a better writer to explore the concept of home through poetry than Margaret Randall.... Randall's visioning and deft phrasing are entirely unique, and the questions that emerge from reading Home are priceless."
- Cedar Sigo, author of Stranger in Town"From the plight of the homeless to the magnificence of Chaco Canyon, Margaret Randall surveys the meanings of 'home' in all its manifestations. This is a marvelous book, featuring the combination of sensitivity, insight, historical knowledge, and strength we have come to expect from Randall's work."
- David Stephen Calonne, author of The Beats in Mexico"In this engrossing collection, Randall's poems enter home spaces that are quiet as her darkroom and yet move across time and space 'like wind / in your hair.' These homes are made of adobe and memory, sandstone and 'unwanted secrets, ' 'Worries like overripe berries.' ... A major poet of our age has come home here to 'nest / and stretch, ' but also to continue to fling herself and her vision across 'vistas / of the knowable world' that have long fueled Randall's remarkable poetic legacy."
- Ruth Salvaggio, author of Hearing Sappho in New Orleans