Bow

by Penelope Austin

Truth is anything we avoid, writes Penelope Austin in Bow, and the sentiment expressed here resonates throughout this collection. Written while Austin fought terminal cancer, Bow is an exploration of a quest to debunk everyday half-truths. These poems are a testament to her will to live, Wyn Cooper writes in the introduction. She lived a full and complex life and wrote poems to match it. This book is a record of both facing death and facing life. Expansive in its scope, blatant in its purpose, Bow is a collection that pays homage to daily experience by dissecting it.

Genres: Poetry

64 pages, Paperback

First published April 25, 2008

Reviews

[Joanna · Rating 3 out of 5]

This poet was at her best when she used fixed forms to give shape to her writing. Her free-form verse was too mixed for me and was neither self-revealing enough nor full of powerful enough images to compel my attention. But when she used sonnets and other forms to encircle the writing, she really did a superb job. The poet battled cancer for most of her life before finally dying just before this book was completed. It's too bad that she wasn't able to write more than her two collections.