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Lyn Lifshin.
Ballroom.
Greensboro, NC: March Street Press. 2010. 286 pages.
ISBN-10: 1596611421; ISBN-13:
978-1596611429. $9.00. Paperback: Product
Dimensions: 7.4 x 4.9 x 0.9 inches; Shipping Weight: 12.8
ounces.
Order from:
www.Amazon.com
Commentary
In Ballroom we
have Lifshin at her absolutely most evocative, energetic,
seductive. The whole book centers on “encounters,” guys and not
gals plural, but Lifshin herself. Some negative encounters, but
most of the time it’s a walloping WELCOME TO THE SEXUAL
ENCOUNTER HERE AND NOW. As always tactile, visual,
deep—psychological, perhaps Lifshin’s single most powerful book.
They’re always powerful, but this one is screaming—not just for
today’s reader, but down the road in time-travel classes about
twenty-first century poetry that brings you irresistibly into
the ecstatic,-squirming NOW.
~Hugh Fox
With Ballroom, my 30-year addiction to Lyn Lifshin is reaffirmed
and continues, unabated. Each new Lifshin work unravels, ravels
and reravels me, shocks me that I’m once again surprised at the
author’s depth and range. Ballroom is an invitation to the dance
of Mad Girls, lovers, obsession, self-doubt, growth,
regressions, transgressions…so potent, sexual, and
thought-provoking in ways only Lyn Lifshin can plumb. This book
tantalizes, lets us find new sides of the author’s voice that
have been living in the margins. Ballroom inspires the same freshness and glistening in me as did
the very first book of Lyn's I read those 3 decades ago. Thank
you, Thank you, Thank you, Lyn. I love this book.
~Ted Roberts
In Lyn Lifshin's latest collection of discrete-yet-linked poems,
dance becomes an exquisite metaphor for obsessive yearning and
desire. Form and content complement each other perfectly:
Lifshin's language is as graceful, physical, and organic as
dance itself.
~Janice Eidus, author of The Last Jewish Virgin & The War of
the Rosens
A FEAST of a book....a very excellent volume for veteran Lifshin
readers and a wonderfully wide ranging book for those new to Ms.
Lifshin's art. I have learned long ago that there is no single
"best" work by Ms. Lifshin...she is provocative, prolific and
among the very best of America's contemporary poets. This book
puts an exclamation point on that opinion.
~Edward Roberts
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