The Art of Folding

In these two major suites of poems, Sarah Zale has composed an epic, an eye-opening, heartrending book that should be read and read again. Hers is a singular and gently courageous voice, one from which we may all draw sustenance and wisdom. Sam Hamill Sarah Zale's first book, The Art of Folding, is worthy of significant notice: her poetic sequence examines our personal responsibilities in a time of war and our relationship to atrocity. She softens the hard line of inquiry with compassionate listening and attentive observation. H.K. Hummel Sarah Zale's The Art of Folding is a masterful work of sustained and interwoven lyrics, at once political and intimate, in which the gestures of daily life are seen as if for the first time in the light of history: folding and unfolding ordinary laundry and something more-cranes, folded and real, wounds, visible and invisible. What we have here is sheer lyric utterance: history and memory, personal disclosure, in a language at once compelling and transparent. These poems are haunted by Nuremberg, Spencer Tracy and Marlene Dietrich, the Wizard of Oz, Camelot, Jerusalem, and there is also Palestine. This poet writes back to Jabès, Siamanto, Amichai and Darwish, and calls forth a most ancient and moral imperative: that poets write of their time, and of the call to the best of humanity. That she struggles toward the boundary between Israel and Palestine is a mark of her seriousness. That she achieves this is a mark of her power. Carolyn Forché Sarah Zale has written a book of hauntingly straightforward and stark, yet inviting poems. Her unique voice and music will captivate you, her images draw you in from the beginning (shirt, ironing, hair), as this important and necessary book gains momentum with each poem.  Martha Silano