Joanne Harris Allred takes her title from a line by Swedish poet Tomas Transtr闣er, the Nobel Laureate known for his precise and enigmatic imagery. Her poems also rely on precise imagery and description, and though less enigmatic, they can be deeply profound. The poem she borrows from is called "Elegy," which seems appropriate since this collection contains a number of informal elegies for parents, friends, siblings, pets, and even her younger selves. Her theme is revealed in the first poem, "Small Gifts," which ends:
Yes, I know matter is transient, only on loan for a spell.
Wordsworth said we find strength in what remains, the shell
of memory, a philosophic mind. And nature picks up the slack,
fills any vacuum: an ocean of things taken, small gifts given back.
In a life of steady losses, how do we find-how do we recognize-the sustaining gifts that the world can provide for us? These twentyfour poems are her attempt to answer this question that haunts the introspective soul. For me, they gleam with bursts of joy in the darkness we drink daily.
-Gary Thompson, author of Broken by Water: Salish Sea Years
In Friends, You Drank Some Darkness, Joanne Harris Allred writes poems that are both earthbound and mystical, exploring the "dueling imperatives" of our lives where we "attend to/the fleshy, material instant" while trying "to stay alert for...a glimpse of what's beyond." In these pages, there is the whole freight of a fully lived life, a season of her twenties when she "stripped to raw abandon" and "only the wild moment mattered." A winter, when she "was a leaf caught / in an eddy" and "even now...can't name what emerged." We go on journeys with friends and family, we discover places of great beauty where "the soul converses only in radiance." We descend into "death's grotto" to "hear/the drip of a spring hidden deeper, / like the plink of piano keys..." and time is an "impeccably dressed heartless killer." This book brings gifts of sound, wisdom, and humor. This is a book to savor.
-Susan Browne, author of Monster Mash
外文書商品之書封，為出版社提供之樣本。實際出貨商品，以出版社所提供之現有版本為主。部份書籍，因出版社供應狀況特殊，匯率將依實際狀況做調整。
無庫存之商品，在您完成訂單程序之後，將以空運的方式為你下單調貨。為了縮短等待的時間，建議您將外文書與其他商品分開下單，以獲得最快的取貨速度，平均調貨時間為1~2個月。
為了保護您的權益，「三民網路書店」提供會員七日商品鑑賞期(收到商品為起始日)。
若要辦理退貨，請在商品鑑賞期內寄回，且商品必須是全新狀態與完整包裝(商品、附件、發票、隨貨贈品等)否則恕不接受退貨。
