| "Late one
summer night he tore through / her
latched screen door, his trousers / in
his hand, and declared his love." So
begins the title poem, which leads off a
charmed yet haunting collection that
tracks and explores the weather patterns
of longing, depression and despair. The
"he" in the above quote is a librarian -
perhaps the ultimate personification of
quiet desperation - and his madness is
par for Barnstone's passionate summers
of "tornadoes, rivers flooding their
banks, // agitated dreams, desire." In
winter, however, yearnings are safely
packed in ice; complacency and
melancholia are the snowfall, and the
only visitors to the poet's bed are the
ghosts of a suicide uncle and
grandfather. Spring arrives with
insistence, "irises poke green /
butterknives through dark dirt," and
Barnstone takes to the water - a shower,
a bath, a swim in the river - to soothe
her body, with hop that love and sex
will converge and her heart will rise.
Scattered throughout these 29 poems are
phrases borrowed from Emily Dickinson.
Indeed, Dickinson's influence is
apparent in Barnstone's deceptively
simple lines, a matter-of-factness that
seems to come straight from her
bloodstream and a hushed urgency that is
deafening.
---Publisher's Weekly
"There's a profound meditation in
Madly in Love, a whirlwind of snow
and warmth, a persistent music that
informs a retrained rage, and it is such
contrasts that propel the sweep and
swell of this book. Each poem is a
honed, crafted collection of moments and
pulsebeats in a landscape where
celebrations and confrontation are
necessary: 'bright snow' and 'smart
misery' are witnessed by the same
merciful eyes."
---Yusef Komunyakaa
"For Aliki Barnstone, poetry seems a
natural medium. The vision and cadences
of these poems suggests a sensibility
for which poetry is as inevitable and
necessary as breathing or eating. It is
no surprise to read, at the conclusion
of one poem (and a poem largely about
despair!): 'I can spit out hatred for
the prescribers / as surely as I've been
cooking up / this poem for a long time
and today / I sit at my feast and enjoy
every bite." Pleasure, wonder, anger,
and moral passion are here, and the
imagination that can write a poem called
'Love Poem' and make it fresh. This is a
remarkable first book."
---Robert Pinsky
"All of a sudden I understand why I
like Aliki Barnstone's poems so much.
They remind me of the one she has
studied most--shall we call her
her master--that Emily Dickinson. Not in the
forms, not, as such, in the music, and
not in the references; but in that weird
intimacy, that eerie closeness, that
absolute confession of soul. Once
you understand this, you begin to see
the connection. It piles up after that.
In Barnstone, (too) the two worlds are
intensely present, and the voice moves
back and forth between them. She has the
rare art of distance and closeness. It
gives her her fine music, her wisdom,
her form. She is a fine poet."
---Gerald Stern
"Madly in Love is beautiful
poetry. These poems are freighted with
longing and doubt but they are never
naive. Passionate, unflinching family
stories and personal loss are here and
yet the will to love breaks all molds.
In Aliki Barnstone's inimitable way,
these poems rise spacious as a clearing
sky. Deep breaths of how it is."
---Ruth Stone
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