Lost Language

by Faith Shearin

In Lost Language , written during the months after a husband's sudden death, Faith Shearin explores the loss of the private language spoken in marriage. She also considers an ancient dancing plague, moon trees, rat kings, and animals in space; she remembers a biology classroom, northern lights, mononucleosis. Shearin imagines Amelia Earhart's distress calls and time in Madagascar. Lost Language is about grief but it is also about wonder.

Genres: Poetry

106 pages, Paperback

First published November 2, 2020

About the author

Faith Shearin is the author of six books of poetry. Her work has been frequently featured by Garrison Keillor on “The Writer’s Almanac.” She is the recipient of awards from The Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, The Barbara Deming Memorial Fund, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Her work also appears in The Autumn House Anthology of Contemporary Poets and in Good Poems, American Places. She lives with her husband, her daughter, and a small, opinionated dachshund, in a cabin on top of a mountain in West Virginia.

Reviews

[M Delea · Rating 5 out of 5]

Utterly beautiful poems. Many of the poems focus on the speaker's loss of her husband, and address him directly; these poems are a mixture of conversational news-iness (this is what I did today) and the grief of having massive heartache. I read this book soon after reading Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking; I think they are wonderful companion pieces, especially for anyone dealing with grief from losing a loved one.

The language is lyrical and the poems are accessible--even folks who do not read poetry regularly will understand and enjoy these poems (I mean this as a compliment). Her book and poem titles are wonderful. I will definitely seek out more of her books.

[B.A. Sise]

7 April 2024

Faith Shearin lifts back the barzakh, the veil between the living and the dead, in her latest and unquestionably best book of poetry. She takes something familiar to all of us -grief- and refashions it, coaxing a beautiful tune from a broken piano.

[Clifford · Rating 5 out of 5]

These are beautiful poems, almost all of which deal with grief after the death of the poet's husband.