Uikyo-e

by Mary Lou Buschi

Mary Lou Buschi’s carefully-composed poems offer moments that, like the woodblock paintings from which the collection gains its title, take small actions and focus on them with such precision that the scenes around them burst forth in a rush of color or warp with the new perspective. These poems delight in moments of transformation: one thing ceases to be, and without pause something else has taken its place. Poems turn themselves inside out; mothers are “carve[d]…out of black sky” and babies made with prayer; a woman’s expression morphs with the turn of an otherworldly dial in the back of her neck. The landscapes that spring forth from these details are vibrant and haunting. Buschi transcribes the wide world and its complexities through the experience of the speaker: the senses, desires, and fears that “keep the oceans apart.” For their economy and restraint, these are huge poems.
-Brandon Amico, Poetry Editor for Swarm Quarterly

15 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 1014

About the author

Mary Lou Buschi holds an MFA in poetry from Warren Wilson College and a Master of Science in Urban Education from Mercy College. She has taught creative writing and literature in the SPS division of New York University. Mary Lou Buschi is the author of 2 full-length poetry collections and 3 chapbooks, most recently, Paddock, through Lily Poetry Review Books(LPR). Her next book, Blue Physics, will be out in January, 2024 through LPR. Mary Lou’s poems have appeared in many literary journals such as Ploughshares (forthcoming), Indiana Review, 2River, The Laurel Review, and Against the Seawall. Currently, she lives in Nyack and teaches in the Bronx. For more information: https://www.maryloubuschi.com