Before It's Light

Lyn Lifshin was the author of more than 125 books and edited four anthologies of women writers. Throughout her life, she remained dedicated to the small presses which first published her. Ms. Lifshin’s Black Sparrow collections are Before It’s Light, Cold Comfort, and Another Woman Who Looks Like Me.

“The direct, spare, largely autobiographical poems in this generous collection from Lyn Lifshin evoke memories of an unlovely girlhood (‘longing to be what every man / would rush to take the gum out of / his mouth to whistle for’); a stormy marriage (‘each separation I lost / 10 pounds’); self-unsparing love affairs (‘we were / like drunks, dying / a little more / every time’); the pain of losing a mother (‘holding her while / she moans my hands are / cold, my hair a whip’); the struggle to regain self-sufficiency after bad relationships (‘some of / us need to regrow claws, survive / on prey, give up safeness’); and the quiet joy of true intimacy (‘that afternoon an / unreal amber / light 4 o clock the / quietness of / oil February blue / bowls full of / oranges we were / spreading honey, butter / on new bread our / skin nearly touching / even the dark wood glowed.’).”—Tom Clark