Beginning where "The White Queen" (Woman With Crows) ends, in the loss of “memory, cleverness, concentration” and the hope of “light through the cracks,” this new book by poet Ruth Thompson explores aging, loss, and the “delamination” of the earth whose body she shares. “We are blown here out of sight of ourselves,” she writes, “staggering and dismayed.” Yet dissolution resolves in expansion, laughter, joy – “seeing, in this dire wind, what there is to worship.”
"Ruth Thompson responds with extraordinary grace and playfulness to the scattering of her mental and physical abilities in old age, the “crazing” of the glaze that gives the vessel its character, the cracks in the body’s shell from which the spirit emerges like a baby chick. She mourns not for herself but for lost tree species, droughts, and future generations who may “die thirsty, telling stories of our green shade.” Her acceptance of her personal body’s limitations shows us a humbler, more sustainable way to inhabit the body of Mother Earth."
— Jendi Reiter, author of Bullies in Love
Ruth Thompson’s new book Crazing sings with beauty, loss, and hope. Her poems boom and soar, full of movement and sensory experience caught in gorgeous, chewable language. Some poets’ work can be read silently: but these pieces demand to be read out loud with open throat, shoulders back, and feet ready to dance. Haul your poetry shorts on and get ready for the goose-bumps up and down your legs!
— Sandra Hunter, author of Losing Touch
ISBN 9780991395262
2015
$16 (Kindle $4.99)
Crazing