Handiwork

by Amaranth Borsuk

Poetry. HANDIWORK is in itself a work of craftsmanship, piecing together fragments while at the same time producing anew. Borsuk summons the tradition of Hebrew gematria to investigate and engage with language's slipperiness, and, as she explains, to provide "a sense of hope within the fruitful possibility of language." It also wrestles with and probes into "where family history becomes personal mythology, and where gaps open up that ask to be filled." The reader explores, in HANDIWORK, both the creative and destructive urges imminent in expression, as "what wounds is easily unwound."

Genres: Poetry

78 pages, Paperback

First published March 2, 2012

Reviews

[Siel Ju · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Imagine this longing not yet known: it cant be wrung: it will only get longer.”
*
My grad school friend Amaranth’s poems fuse personal and cultural histories, combining the unpublished story of Amaranth grandmother with the Jewish practice of gematria with the periodic table. If you love constraint-based poetry, pick up this precisely-crafted volume.

[Bill · Rating 5 out of 5]

Poems that call to be read more than once, viewed on the page more than once.