Christine Garren – författare

In poems of haunting lyricism, and in a voice wholly unlike any other American poet, Christine Garren's second book of poetry explores common themes such as love, loss, and family with an uncommon sensibility. Among the Monarchs is filled with unforgettable metaphors, unconventional and unpredictable juxtapositions, turns and angles of perception, and seductive free verse rhythms. Through all of this, Garren captivates readers in a unique exploration of the nature of desire, the raptures and burdens of love and loss, the peculiarities of family life and, perhaps most compelling, the power of poetic imagination to shape what we see and feel. At once engaging and disquieting, Among the Monarchs attests to the inexhaustible possibilities of lyric poetry.

In poems of haunting lyricism, and in a voice wholly unlike any other American poet, Christine Garren's second book of poetry explores common themes such as love, loss, and family with an uncommon sensibility. Among the Monarchs is filled with unforgettable metaphors, unconventional and unpredictable juxtapositions, turns and angles of perception, and seductive free verse rhythms. Through all of this, Garren captivates readers in a unique exploration of the nature of desire, the raptures and burdens of love and loss, the peculiarities of family life and, perhaps most compelling, the power of poetic imagination to shape what we see and feel. At once engaging and disquieting, Among the Monarchs attests to the inexhaustible possibilities of lyric poetry.

The Piercing celebrates the here and now while endorsing a deep faith in the necessity of the imagination. In response to life in a literal world, Christine Garren's lyric poems ignite belief in exhilaration. Ordinary settings - a park, a pond, a littered vacant lot, an attic room - through Garren's eyes reveal something extraordinary. For example, in ""February Snow,"" the poet surveys a winter scene through the windows of various rooms and reflects how ""Sometimes it is beautiful, in some of the minutes / then ordinary again - /... that feeling / of air in the midst of burial."" In ""The Well,"" she writes of reaching an impasse in a relationship: ""The exhilarating life is finished. We must accept it / this late afternoon and move / back into the rational world."" Spare, quiet, visual distillations of the physical and emotional dimensions of the moment define The Piercing with a driving energy at once delicate and fierce.Small piercing as if in the earlobe your leaving caused. Air is filling it now, time fills it,the view through these windows fills the tiny hole.The people on the street, the manic father,the other father carrying his child in pink - thismillimeter's width opening is for a decade to fit through.Look, there you go. There I go - there our landscape goes as ifthrough a fantastical roof's hole, the shingle pulled off, the nail off - our death isflying over the city.- ""The Piercing