A Responsibility to Awe, published in the UK by Carcanet last autumn and due for US publication in April 2002, comprises around 50 poems,mostly in free forms, together with an autobiographical essay and extracts from the notebooks of the poet/astronomer, Rebecca Elson. It has already received book of the year listings from more than one UK newspaper and appreciative magazine reviews. Although the shadow of death hangs over some of her writings - Rebecca's lymphoma was diagnosed some years before her death at the age of 39 -this collection is far from depressing. Her zest for life and humour are reflected in her subject range - from Carnal Knowledge (which draws on algebraic imagery) and Theories of Everything to The Still Life of [kitchen] Appliances. In The Ballad of Just and While she segues effortlessly from light verse:
But one thing's not enough for me.
With 'while' I could be doing three
to something far more deeply felt:
Let while be something outside me:
The turning earth, the waving sea.
Let just be me upon some beach,
Just sorting pebbles within reach.
The last lines recall her memories of the North Canadian summers of her childhood, when she acted as assistant to her geologist father.
Several of the scientific disciplines which meant most to her feed into the remarkable 'Antidotes to Fear of Death'
which begins:
Sometimes as an antidote
To fear of death,
I eat the stars
and concludes:
And sometimes it's enough
To lie down here on earth
Beside our long ancestral bones:
To walk across the cobble fields
Of our discarded skulls,
Each like a treasure, like a chrysalis,
Thinking: whatever left these husks
Flew off on bright wings.
The notebooks, fascinating in themselves as records of her life and loves, are of special interest to workshoppers as the key to her working methods.
A warmly recommended Carcanet publication, it's listed by Amazon UK at £5.56, and can be pre-ordered from Amazon.com at $9.95.
[This message has been edited by Margaret Moore (edited February 09, 2002).]
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