Book Title
Reading Szymborska in a Time of Plague
Format
Book
Publication Year
2023
Publisher
Brick Road Poetry Press
ISBN
978-1-950739-10-3
Description
Written during the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic, Joan Baranow’s Reading Szymborska in a Time of Plague contemplates the dread uncertainty of our life. Describing hospitalized sufferers, she writes: “A patient, no longer struggling, is wheeled away. / Another sits up, accepts the bent straw between his lips.” Likewise, her tough-minded yet always loving vision of domestic life invites us to inhabit a level of self-scrutiny that leaves us heartened even if also often troubled. And yet, despite the losses mourned throughout this book, the poet’s humor and hopefulness prevail. In “Advice from a Moth” she exhorts us to “enjoy the erratic path.” Deeply satisfying, Baranow’s unaffected language is as clear and natural as a tumbler of spring water. She possesses a scrupulously honed poetic gift that is precious and rare.
Arnold Rampersad, Stanford University. Author of The Life of Langston Hughes (2 vols.)