The Holy & Broken Bliss

by Alicia Ostriker

How can we find meaning in the face of aging, illness, and the inevitability of death? How can we respond to the double plague of a fierce pandemic and a divided society? The keenly observant and urgent poems of The Holy & Broken Bliss are grounded in daily existence, human tenderness, the rituals of a long marriage, and the poet’s ongoing spiritual quest. 

In the middle of a world that seems to be breaking down into suffering and anger, the spare and direct lines of these poems, surrounded by silence, offer a kind of healing. The poems ask us to consider what living looks like inside of ongoing misery (misery we often are responsible for making and accepting). They call us to ask ourselves how we locate joy and even laughter when despair is ever-present. The Holy & Broken Bliss contemplates free will, autonomy, self-control, the commodification of ourselves, and our desires for vengeance, satiation, rage, and acknowledgment of our collective sicknesses, along with the sacred possibilities of love, communication with nature, the power of art, and the "need to praise."

Genres: Poetry

100 pages, Paperback

Published October 8, 2024

Reviews

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

“The words of an old woman shuffling the cards of her own decline the decline
of her husband the decline of her nation her plague-smitten world”

Out of pandemic isolation come new rituals: watching days and seasons pass, fighting for her own health but mostly her husband’s, and lamenting public displays of hate. Lines feel stark with honesty; some poems are just haiku length. Elsewhere, repetition and alliteration create a wistful tone. Jewish scripture and mysticism are the source of much of the language and outlook. Music and nature, too, promise the transcendent. Simple and remarkable. Here’s a stanza about late autumn:

It is almost winter and still
as I walk to the clinic the gingkos
sing their seraphic air
as if there is no tomorrow

Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.

[Mya Matteo · Rating 1 out of 5]

Hard no. There are moments of introspection and observation here that I enjoy but as a whole this text often possesses well-meaning but still careless white-savior / microaggressive tendencies. examples: the poem "Tachycardia", where she compares her heart issues to chattel slavery, "Elul", and similar poems where she attempts to write about racial violence. Feels very careless / unintentionally disrespectful.

[Anne · Rating 1 out of 5]

Already wasn’t enjoying this because pandemic poetry is such a hit-or-miss (miss), but the moment she portrayed her tachycardia as herself being a plantation mistress and her heart being a house slave racing toward the Underground Railroad… yeah no

[Meredith D]

weird L for Alice James, as another reviewer stated, there are white savior/micro-aggressive elements to several of the poems that put me off much of the book. that said I did enjoy ‘LATE AUTUMN GINGKOS’ and wish the rest of the collection had been to that standard of form & consideration

[Jill · Rating 5 out of 5]

Found this new poetry book at the library and will definitely be looking for her other books. I thought there was beauty in her writing and enjoyed reading her poems.

[Amorak Huey · Rating 5 out of 5]

The love poems in this book are amazing.

[Leilaniiii · Rating 3 out of 5]

Essentially, it kinda revolves around her looming death and time.