Dailies and Rushes: Poems

By Susan Kinsolving and Cleo Qian

Book Overview

"The passion, playfulness, and regret in these wonderful poems will make many women think this book was written just for them." -- Susan Cheever "Susan Kinsolving's poems skate with a dark elegance on the thin ice between the upper air and a deepening sorrow, between the day's figures and memory's pattern. But she's headed towards love: the distant shore, the beckoning warmth; and by the end of Dailies & Rushes she has gotten herself -- and, to our delight and gratitude, brought us as well--triumphantly there." -- J. D. McClatchy "What rings with authenticity in Susan Kinsolving's poems is a lovely severity. . . . Sorrow and courage and pleasure register themselves in lucid distillations, like the purities of winter air." -- Anthony Hecht "'Things just are, ' Susan Kinsolving writes, in a matter-of-fact tone that belies a fiery intensity. In her poetry, commonplace things are imbued with a magical aura. Her wry wit clarifies as it deepens a tragic vision." -- Grace Schulman "In her first major collection Susan Kinsolving shows herself to be a poet of ravenous amplitudes, of wit schooled by feeling, of observations had owed by memory, and of landscape rising to what she calls 'an oblique sublimity' which is also the hallmark of her art." -- Edward Hirsch

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0802136052
• ISBN13: 9780802136053
• Release Date: February 1999
• Publisher: Grove Press
• Length: 96 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 5.5" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

Incredible Poetry

I was enthralled by Susan Kinsolving's poetry. There are poems in this collection that have stayed with me and will continue to do so throughout my life. One in particular, "Sotto Voce", captures the intense craving that only loneliness can conjure. I am so grateful to this brilliant poet for writing what I have felt. Thank you Susan Kinsolving!

Strong Debut

Kinsolving's book is lovely. Although I wouldn't call her poems gripping, they are polished and beautifully restrained--at times, disturbing. Certainly not the typical first book of poems; I can see why it is getting so much attention.

Elegant, well-written debut.

This is simply a beautifully written collection of poems. It is listed as a first book, but Kinsolving writes with the grace and authority of a more established poet.

A wonderful, beautiful book of poems.

This is a wonderful, beautiful book of poems. I bought a copy a week ago, and now I'm buying copies as gifts for friends. This is a real poet who writes poems that help us give meaning to our place in the larger world. I've been thinking about these poems ever since I read them. Actually, I think the cover photograph (while is is artfully stunning) is a bit misleading. The poems are wise and mature and very thoughtful---not contemporary (in the bad sense of the word) but universal. Just lovely.

It's what poetry is all about, it moves you!

It's the kind of book you must continue to read. You will not put it down until you are finished. And then you will go back and read it again. It's simple yet complex, light but heavy, and joyful yet sad. You feel an affinity to the author, her sorrows and joys permeate your psyche. It's what poetry is all about.