The Bodies We Were Loaned - Softcover

Terrone, Maria

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0915380498 ISBN 13: 9780915380497

Publisher: Word Works, 2002

Synopsis

Whether focused on turn-of-the-century subway workers, Madame Curie, or the author's own family, these finely crafted poems recognize life's impermanence and transcendent beauty. Cover Art by Daniel Hugoes.

About this title

From the Publisher

Maria Terrone's scrupulously crafted, suavely cadenced poems record telling details of the quotidian world with such vividness that after a while we begin to hear "the rush" of the "hidden/city" of the heart, "its roar and raging heat, the wild/dark needed to become human." The Bodies We Were Loaned is a triumph of meticulous sorrow. --Sandra M. Gilbert

Here the poetry starts before we even open the book. The title The Bodies We Were Loaned was apropos before the events of September 2001 made it electric with a raw new relevance. We savor what we know will pass, long for what is passing--be it a Chinese emperor, a sandhog or "a prophet in flame red lipstick." Here we find them all. Here we also find eloquence without a hint of the facile, a naturalist's eye avid for textures and detail, and a heart prepared to evoke "the body's unequivocal language." These fine poems are a delight to recommend. -- William Pitt Root

In language precise in its physicality and thought, Maria Terrone celebrates ordinary work and those who perform it, admiring the tough, the common,what endures. As keenly attuned to what is going on in works of art as in the emotional states she observes in herself and those around her, her poems become notations of mood, intensely alive to the passing moment, and to all those momentary things that are, by the force of her observation, "dipped in light." It is "the body's unequivocal language" that Maria Terrone aspires to in this maturely achieved first collection. --Eamon Grennan

In The Bodies We Were Loaned, Maria Terrone presents us with sensuous and sensitive poems that explore the presence of the extraordinary in the ordinary. This powerful, moving book is a love song to the wounded world. --Maria Mazziotti Gillan

Count on it: a poem by Maria Terrone entices. In her first book, expect surprises. Maria loves the exotic of now and long ago, the local landscapes of the globe. But she especially loves New York, and her splendid poems capture the joy in sounds and images so vivid, I'm there. I love all the poems in this collection. --Walt McDonald

About the Author

Maria Terrone has received the 2001 Willow Review Award in Poetry, the 2000 Elinor Benedict Poetry Prize from Passages North and the 1998 Allen Tate Memorial Award from WIND. Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

About this edition

• Publisher: Word Works
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0915380498
• ISBN 13: 9780915380497
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 108