From Publishers Weekly
Lorde's ( A Burst of Light ) poems have always melded the political and lyrical worlds, the ordinary and the luminous, addressing controversial topics that she struggled with as a black lesbian poet, and the work in The Marvelous Arithmetics of Distance is no exception. These poems are reminders of her characteristic themes, from ecstatic poems of love and self-discovery to others grappling with cancer and the fear of death. The work here enhances Lorde's tradition of clipped, sparse lines that turn unexpectedly from one subject to another, and of arresting and often unabashedly political imagery. Some of the poetry about death is haunting, as in the last stanza of "Speechless:" "Death / folds the corners of my mouth / into a heart-shaped star / sits on my tongue like a stone / around which your name blossoms / distorted." Or in "Restoration: A Memorial--9/18/91," a poem describing the aftermath of hurricane Hugo, which devastated the house Lorde lived in, but was written from another continent, where she was undergoing chemotherapy: "In this alien and temporary haven / my poisoned fingers / slowly return to normal / I read your letter dreaming / the perspective of a bluefish / or a fugitive parrot." Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.


Book Description
39 poems written between 1987 and 1992 by the woman Adrienne Rich has called, "a major American poet whose concerns are international, and whose words have left their mark on many lives."

FROM THE PUBLISHER

This collection, 39 poems written between 1987 and 1992, is the final volume by Audre Lorde, "a major American poet whose concerns are international, and whose words have left their mark on many lives," in the words of Adrienne Rich. Audre Lorde was a poet of the city of her birth, New York, as well as of other urban landscapes. She spoke of the Caribbean, Africa, Europe. She brought to all these places a true cosmopolitan vision, one dissatisfied with the usual description of things, one eager for truth-telling, for change. She spoke of her hopes for this, her final offering to the world she traveled: "Beyond the penchant for easy definitions, false exactitudes, we share a hunger for enduring value, relationship beyond hierarchy and outside reproach, a hunger for life measures, complex, direct, and flexible....I want this book to be filled with shards of light thrown off from the shifting tensions between the dissimilar, for that is the real stuff of creation and growth."

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly