Overview
You arrive at my altar
with no idea
what it means to worship--to adore.
You haven't even learned it:
ecstasy and suffering
make the same face.
--from "The Offering"
May Day is both a distress call and a celebration of the arrival of spring. In this rich and unusually assured first collection, the poet Gretchen Marquette writes of the losses of a brother gone off to war in Afghanistan and Iraq, and a great love--losses that have left the world charged with absence and grief. But there is also the wonder of the natural world: the deer at the edge of the forest, the dog reliably coaxing the poet beyond herself and into the city park where by tradition every May Day is pageantry, a festival of surviving the long winter. "What does it mean to be in love?" one poem asks. "As it turns out, / the second best thing that can happen to you / is a broken heart."
May Day introduces readers to a new poet of depth and power.
This book title, May Day (Poems), ISBN: 9781555977399, by Gretchen Marquette, published by Graywolf Press (May 3, 2016) is available in paperback. Our minimum order quantity is 25 copies. All standard bulk book orders ship FREE in the continental USA and delivered in 4-10 business days.
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