Persephone - Softcover

Lifshin, Lyn

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1597091243 ISBN 13: 9781597091244

Publisher: Red Hen Press, 2008

Synopsis

Like the mythic Persephone, these poems move between worlds of wild light and onyx darkness. Abducted by Hades, Persephone was kept captive in the underworld until her mother, Demeter, consumed with rage and sorrow, refused to let anything live or bloom. Grudgingly, Hades released her but only after she tasted the pomegranate he offered, a fruit that kept her bound to him for three months of the year forever. These poems move between such ecstatic glimpses of love, sex, family and that underworld of pain, loss and dark coldness between parents and children, siblings, lovers and strangers. The blues and despair in her poems, immediate and powerful as the worlds of any woman who moves from darkness and cold into the green world of rebirth, light and flowers, highlights "the combination of eros, ebullience and triste, or sadness," a Lifshin trademark.

About this title

About the Author:

Lyn Lifshin s Another Woman Who Looks Like Me was just published by Black Sparrow at David Godine October, 2006. It has been selected for the 2007 Paterson Award for Literary Excellence for previous finalists of the Paterson Poetry Prize. (ORDER@GODINE.COM ). Also out in 2006 is her prize winning book about the famous, short lived beautiful race horse, Ruffian: The Licorice Daughter: My Year With Ruffian from Texas Review Press. Lifshin s other recent prizewinning books include Before it s Light published winter 1999-2000 by Black Sparrow press, following their publication of Cold Comfort in 1997. Her poems have appeared in most literary and poetry magazines and she is the subject of an award winning documentary film, Lyn Lifshin: Not Made of Glass, available from Women Make Movies. Her poem, The No More Apologizing, the No More Little, Laughing Blues has been called among the most impressive documents of the women s poetry movement, by Alicia Ostriker. An update to her Gale Research Projects Autobiographical series, On the Outside: Blues, Blue Lace, was published Spring 2003. What Matters Most and August Wind as well as She was Found Treading Water Deep out in the Ocean, In Mirrors, An Unfinished Journey and Novemberly were recently published Tsunami is forthcoming from BLUE UNICORN. World Parade Press will publish Poets, (Mostly) Who Have Touched me, Living and Dead. All True. Especially the Lies.. Texas Review Press will publish Barbaro, Beyond Brokenness in Fall 2008 and World Parade Books just published Desire in March 2008. Red Hen will publish Persephone fall 2008. Coatalism Press has just published 92 Rapple Drive and Goose River Press will publish Nutley Pond. Finishing Line Press will publish Lost In The Fog For interviews, photographs, more bio material, reviews, interviews, prose, samples of work and more, her web site is www.lynlifshin.com

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Review:

"Here she is! Might as well stop fighting it. Lifshin is not going to go away. For men, she's sexy. For women she's an archetype of gutsy independence. As a poet, she's nobody but herself. Frightening prolific and utterly intense. One of a kind."— San Francisco Review of Books

Lyn Lifshin's poetry appears in almost every literary and poetry magazine, from American Scholar, Christian Science Monitor and Yankee to Ms., Rolling Stone and Ploughshares. She has edited 4 anthologies of women's writing including TANGLED VINES (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich) now in its second enlarged edition and chosen by Ms., magazine as one of the 60 best books of the year. Other anthologies she edited include ARIADNE'S THREAD and LIPS UNSEALED. "The No More Apologizing, The No More Little Laughing Blues," included in her new book, BEFORE IT'S LIGHT from Black Sparrow Press, has been called "among the most impressive documents the women's poetry movement has produced," by Alicia Ostriker. "Writing Mint Leaves at Yaddo," a prose piece was selected as one of the best pieces of writing about writing by Writer's Digest and Story magazine.

About this edition

• Publisher: Red Hen Press
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 1597091243
• ISBN 13: 9781597091244
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 184