The Rapids

by Susan Gillis

Poetry. Urgent and precarious, the poems in THE RAPIDS, Susan Gillis' third collection, take us to places lost and reclaimed: a balcony high over the St. Lawrence River in downtown Montreal, upstream to the Lachine Rapids, and beyond, to landscapes as far apart as Greece and the B.C. coast.The presiding spirit of the book is force: wind, water, and time at work on the body and on the body of the world. Like the river that is its measure, THE RAPIDS is full of sudden shifts a polyphony of surges and eddies and remarkable leaps."THE RAPIDS, Susan Gillis' ravishing new collection, gives us the strange loops of ordinary moments: a farewell at a train station, an empty room, the first bloodroot in spring. Her poems airy, shimmering reveal a slippage in time and space. We are not where we thought we were not at all." Anne Simpson"

Genres: Poetry

104 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2012

About the author

Reader, poet, editor, mentor
Lover of poetry, host of Concrete & River
Author of Yellow Crane (Brick Books 2018) and more
A little bit freeway, a little bit lane

Reviews

[Hannah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gorgeously written poetry -- the inevitability of change, the beauty of nature and the world, the meaningful smallness of life.

[Antoinette Van Beck · Rating 5 out of 5]

what a lovely collection of poems. some stunning description, but the sense of space, movement, and ethereal beauty in each piece was powerful. favorite poems noted in reading updates.