Pure Descent

by Elizabeth Robinson

Winner of the 2001 National Poetry Series, Pure Descent was selected by Fanny Howe. This book of poetry expresses its title in at least two ways: as a straight descent into the world and into the fear and reality of death; and as a fall from "purity" and spiritual "grace." Elizabeth Robinson searches through her struggles with the spiritual world that is as fresh as today’s headlines.

Elizabeth Robinson grew up in Los Alamitos, California. She attended Bard College and Brown University, and now lives in the San Francisco area. Her previous books include Eight Etudes, Bed of Lists, In the Sequence of Falling Things, and My Name Happens Also.

Genres: Poetry

60 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

About the author

Elizabeth Robinson was educated at Bard College, Brown University, and Pacific School of Religion. She currently lives in Boulder, Colorado. With Colleen Lookingbill, she co-edits EtherDome Press. She co-edits Instance Press with Laura Sims and Beth Anderson.

Reviews

[Jay Mathias]

Altogether great stuff. Very intriguing diction and rhythm. Many of the poems evoke descent not even through content but through their listless and downward-floating feel. My fav was ‘Diarist’:

There are
antique trees here,

ancient water,

bodiless messages.

Permit this,
that the swelling and shrinking of the cold
are rhythmic minute by minute

inside a greater span.

We who are abandoned
find abandoned things

as though reassurance were a map

and the world as depicted
traces time with so fine

a denigration

that the fossil renews its carcass

splintering outward.

[clarissa cutrell]

Elizabeth rocks!