In this stunning follow-up to her prizewinning debut collection (
At the Site of Inside Out), Anna Rabinowitz has created a braided and woven language from the turbulence of multiple voices in the act of finding themselves.
Darkling is a book-length acrostic sequence a poem of accretion, of fragmented self and culture. Seeking its own process and form, it assembles narrative by way of antiphony, counterpoint, meditation, chant, repetition and epistle.
How does a contemporary poet speak in the aftermath of the Holocaust? Is it possible to evoke, perhaps even reactualize, through language, rhythms, and imagery, intimations of the past when factual details are largely lost? Can new constructs of language be generated within the constraints of a received form?
Anna Rabinowitz unflinchingly takes on these questions as she looks back on the ruptured history of the 20th century. Drawing on literary roots of Thomas Hardy's ""The Darkling Thrush"" and the ancient acrostic form, she has shaped an utterly original, deeply personal work which is both armature and repository for an emotionally charged language called upon to articulate that which cannot be fully spoken.
With Darkling, Anna Rabinowitz brilliantly demonstrates that one can, indeed, write poetry after the Holocaust.
Anna Rabinowitz's work has appeared widely in such journals as
Atlantic Monthly, Boston Review, The Paris Review, Colorado Review, Southwest Review, Denver Quarterly, Sulfur, LIT, VOLT, and
Doubletake. Her work has also appeared in the anthologies,
The Best American Poetry 1989, edited by Donald Hall,
Life on the Line: Selections on Words and Healing, and in
The KGB Bar Reader. She edits and publishes the nationally distributed literary journal,
American Letters & Commentary, and is a vice-president of the Poetry Society of America.
Anna Rabinowitz's most recent volume of poetry is The Wanton Sublime: A Florilegium of Whethers and Wonders (Tupelo Press, 2006). Her book-length acrostic poem, Darkling: A Poem, also available from Tupelo Press, has been adapted into an experimental, multi-media music theater work by American Opera Projects and had a limited run from February 26 through March 18, 2006 at the 13th Street Theatre, NYC, with a gala opening night on February 28, 2006. Excerpts from this theater work, along with panel discussions, were presented at the Guggenheim Museum in November, 2005. Rabinowitz's other books include At the Site of Inside Out, which won the Juniper Prize.
