Loom-2011 Open Book Prize

The word loom calls us to the edges, perhaps even limits, of life-to what appears as the space and means of creation-and to what appears on that horizon, soliciting reflection and response. In Sarah Gridley's third collection of poems, the word serves as emblem and omen, as signal object of meditation. At the loom-and looming-is The Lady of Shalott-poetic specter of Tennyson's surfaced-and silenced-anima. Trusting in the deep ambiguities of text and textile, spirit and matter, masculine and feminine, Loom calls the Lady back to life, out of isolation, circumscription, and distraction. A book of poems set against the work of disconnection, Loom searches for reconstructions of gender, dwelling, and the sacred.