Flow Blue

by Sarah Kennedy

Poetry. FLOW BLUE by Sarah Kennedy was one of the winners of the Elixir Press Second Annual Poetry Awards. David Wojohn had this to say about "Sarah Kennedy's FLOW BLUE reminds us of the urgency and necessity of the autobiographical lyric. Harrowing as the tale the book relates may be, FLOW BLUE is always informed by a fluent and lyric grace and a deft formal precision, and displays a confidence and maturity of voice." Her work has appeared in such publications as Crab Orchard Review, Poem, and Sycamore Review.

80 pages, Paperback

First published April 4, 2002

About the author

Sarah Kennedy is the author of The Cross and the Crown series from Penmore Press. She has published seven books of poems and is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts grant, a National Endowment for the Humanities grant, and a Virginia Commission for the Arts Individual Artist Fellowship.

Reviews

[Robert Beveridge · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sarah Kennedy, Flow Blue (Elixir, 2002)

There can be no doubt that Sarah Kennedy is a fine poet. What keeps me from wholeheartedly recommending this collection, however, is the obsession aspect; when an entire collection pounds away at the same themes over and over and over again, it can get a little oppressive. But taken in small doses, this is fabulous stuff;

“He will never find me, curled here
under the last stalks of the garden. Let's go,
he yells, but I watch the bean-vines
braiding gold corn to tomatoes

and stay silent.”
(“Grounded”)

I suggest getting your hands on a copy of this one and going through it, at most, one or two poems a day, leavening the reading with a number of other collections; this will go down easier. ***