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Synopsis
The Skiers: New and Selected Poems is a selection from Jill Bialosky’s three collections published in the US, plus a body of new work. "Bialosky is ultimately a poet of empathy, the need for it and the solace and power it brings." Ian Pople, The Manchester Review Drawing on her experiences of childhood and adolescence, of childbirth and death, of motherhood, love and sexuality, she creates poems that are at once moving, unflinchingly honest and marked by a consummate technical skill. She has been described by Gerald Stern as "the poet of the secret garden, the place, at once, of grace and sadness" and her poetry has a dignity, a magic and a passion that makes it utterly distinctive. "Bialosky's work derives its strength from her obsessive disquietude about her past, her inability to escape it, and its ceaseless consequences." The Warwick Review
Anyone who has studied literature at any length knows the real and soothing pleasure of sinking into a book that has not been prescribed to them by a lecturer. The sensation is akin to slipping into a warm bath on a cold day and it was with just such a sensation that I opened Jill Bialosky’s The Skiers for the first time. This is her first publication in the UK and brings together a selection of material from her three collections of poetry in one volume. The period over which they were published (not to mention written) spans over a decade, and through this time Jill Bialosky’s poems take us on a personal journey that speaks of very intimate experiences of love, desire and loss. From detailed parental vignettes, through adolescent sexual awakening to the suicide of a sister, to the experience of motherhood, these poems draw the reader into a depth of genuine and, at times, raw emotion that strikes a chord on a far more accessible and relatable level than may be initially suggested. In The Skiers, inner emotion and external landscapes are seamlessly and beautifully interwoven, as are allusions to Classical and contemporary worlds, to create a collection that refuses to be confined to any one poetic form. Bialosky’s balance of personal expression with scenic evocation produces poetry that is not only moving but also extremely enjoyable to read. At the end of this selection of wonderful poems I was left with only one question: when will Jill Bialosky’s full collections be published in the UK?
Camilla De Clermont
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