The Storm That Tames Us: Poetry

The rich, lyrical poetry of Renée Gregorio’s second collection echoes the impassioned tradition of Mirabai, Yosano Akiko, and Anne Sexton. Gregorio is comfortable with a wide range of poetic possibility, working with traditional forms such as haiku, tanka, ghazal, and villanelle as well as with the prose poem and experimentations with lyric poetry. Her subject matter is equally diverse, encompassing the actual and philosophical “other,” social doubt, love, the natural world, death, the Japanese martial art Aikido, and a sense of the deep significance of place, whether that place is the Southwest, London, a barrio, a mountain village, or simply the sense that one can achieve one’s own center, no matter where.