{"product_id":"reading-szymborska-in-a-time-of-plague-9781950739103","title":"Reading Szymborska in a Time of Plague","description":"\u003cp\u003eWritten during the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic, Joan Baranow's \u003cem\u003eReading Szymborska in a Time of Plague\u003c\/em\u003e 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eArnold Rampersad, Stanford University\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAuthor, \u003cem\u003eThe Life of Langston Hughes \u003c\/em\u003e(2 vols.)\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eJoan Baranow's \u003cem\u003eReading Szymborska in a Time of Plague\u003c\/em\u003e opens with poems about months of isolation with her spouse and college-age son during the 2020-21 pandemic. Instead of anger or boredom, her poems express tenderness with images of care and repair. They explore the natural world, paying special attention to shunned creatures: an iguana that lost its tail, insects, even a baby rat whose life she spares. In Baranow's sequence \"Summer Ghazals\" she asks herself about mysteries of illness, life, and death. A series of heart-thumping elegies follows soon after the ghazals. Read this wonderful book. Read all of it from \"Traveling in Tiger Rain\" to its final poem \"Prayer,\" where she implores: \"Let quiet hours pass without a stir \/ while the earth repairs.\" \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSusan Terris\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAuthor of\u003cem\u003e Familiar Tense\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"I'm there as much as here,\" Joan Baranow tells us, staring into a Japanese print. In richly musical and compassionate poems, Baranow reconciles our daily lives with our desirous imaginings: \"most of life comes at you \/ while scrambling eggs in the pan.\" Whether writing elegies or confronting her own mortality, Baranow leans toward community for consolation and renewal, taking note of \"trees sending mycorrhizal \/ messages underground \/\/ like teenagers vibrating \/ under their clothes.\" Literary, political, and erotic, \u003cem\u003eReading Szymborska in a Time of Plague \u003c\/em\u003econsiders \"What blunderous creatures we are, \/ holding cell phones to our heads,\" the poet's voice brimming with anxiety and affection.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMichael Waters\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAuthor of \u003cem\u003eCAW\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Brick Road Poetry Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50499050570002,"sku":"9781950739103","price":12.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_e0cf02b7-ea71-474a-b200-ef9c6caec96a.jpg?v=1730738586","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/reading-szymborska-in-a-time-of-plague-9781950739103","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}