Showing results for "The Door" in Death, Grief & Loss

Quietly reflective, the beautifully written poems in this slim volume offer a welcome respite from the noisy insistence of modern life. The language, now simple and direct, now rich in associations, double-meanings, and imagery, has its own natural rhythm and appeal regardless of subject and rhyme.

“I will consider a slice of pizza," opens Phillips's poem "Jubilate Civitas." "For rare among pleasures in Gotham, it is both / exquisite and blessedly cheap." Thus, as throughout this collection, he celebrates a simple pleasure that "in a time of deceit . . . is honest and upright, steadfast and good"; even the busted buttons we press when waiting to cross the street make for elegy in a collection that brings us this poet at his burnished best.

This honest and haunting collection of poems follows the loss of the poet’s only son to heroin addiction. St. Germain takes us through the stages of her grief and offers no false promises or simple answers. These narrative-driven poems are a compelling and compassionate look into addiction and the effect it has on a family.