Excerpts from a Burned Letter: Poems

Literature & Fiction

Barron, Joelle

Poetry

Nightwood Editions

Longlisted, Gerald Lampert Memorial Award On "A Girl Like This Might Have Loved Glenn Gould": "The poem sits up at its greasy-spoon counter and recounts its tale, a kind of cryptic plain-speech, an inverted code, all the more puzzling for what it plainly says: 'Under a spell so the wrong ones can't find it, / So can't get saved,' as Robert Frost said." -- Jeffery Donaldson Absorbed in the small, everyday rituals of existence, this remarkable collection of poems tears open the fruit of life and scoops out beauty and joy, pain and suffering, in equal measure. Ritual Lightstakes the reader on a journey through an underworld that is both familiar and uncanny, a space between death and life where one nourishes the other. Shadowed by the aftermath of sexual assault, Joelle Barron places candles in the darkest alcoves, illuminates mysteries, and rises again to an abundant Earth where the darkness is transformed into rich loam. These poems follow the speaker through grieving and loss, heartbreak, repression, and discovery, seeking, never finding an answer, but finding meaning in the work of continuing. A meditation on trauma and identity, deeply vulnerable and reserved, funny and full of rage, Ritual Lightsexplores the sometimes messy and ugly, but always necessary, nature of survival.

Ritual Lights

icehouse poetry

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Barron, Joelle. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Barron, Joelle

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Barron, Joelle. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Excerpts from a Burned Letter: Poems

Ritual Lights