To Speak

By Michelle Elrick

In the title poem of her debut collection of poetry, To Speak, Michelle Elrickwrites:
My silence seems inevitable//as if I cannot afford to give anything away.//As if I have given it all already, given it to you/
It is the desire to articulate this silence that is the heart of To Speak. When the failure of a love affair renders everything irrevocably strange, unutterable, the poet begins a quest in search of the means to be able to speak again. It is this journey that the reader is invited to become a part of, traveling by poem on a road trip that will take them both through miles and miles of familiar and uncharted terrain.
To Speak begins with bread I grind my grandmother s bones to a powder//mix a little water from the blue glacier and ends with the renewal of spring, and a profound connection with nature, On the branches, tight knots of new leaf begin their slow unraveling//like the loosening of the tongue around a newly repeated name.
In between there is a rare elegance at work.
Seduced by the quiet yet forceful voice of the speaker readers will find themselves entranced by what a word can have bottled up inside of it. The beauty and strength of Michelle Elrick s poetry is that it resonates with simplicity and moth-like grace even when it is asking for the world. So when she asks, Are you a kiln? //Are you a can of Krylon? it does seem entirely possible.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1897289502
• ISBN13: 9781897289501
• Release Date: April 2010
• Publisher: Muses' Company
• Length: 96 Pages
• Weight: 0.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 5.4" x 8.3"