Grief's Apostrophe

In this heartbreakingly beautiful book, Steven Ratiner constructs a seamless fabric of grief, weaving threads of memory, keen observation of the natural world, variations on religious tradition, and an active awareness of language. Among the book's smaller pleasures are complex metaphors, varied syntax, and constant attention to the word: the poet is "marred by, married to this compulsive/ language and cannot shut it(shout it) out even in this house of silence." Which is fortunate for us who follow him as he moves from the personal before of witnessing illness and dementia, through a spiritually -deepened and globally-expanded exploration of death itself, to an after that finds solace in "love's continuance, grief's temporary reprieve," as well as the more permanent gift of art. Steven Ratiner has been championing other poets for many years. This gorgeous collection of his own fine work is long overdue.--Martha Collins, author of Casualty Reports (University of Pittsburgh Press) 

Steven Ratiner has previously published three chapbooks and been featured in numerous anthologies; his worrk has appeared in scores of journals  in America and abroad including Parnassus, Agni, Hanging Loose, Poet Lore, Salamander, QRLS (Singapore), HaMusach (Israel), and Poetry Australia. For several years, he was the poetry book critic for the Washington Post and, prior to that, The Christian Science Monitor. He's also written essays on poetry, literature and art for the San Francisco Chronicle, the Arrowsmith Journal,Horizon magazine, and Yankee Magazine,Giving Their Word--Conversations with Contemporary Poets was re-issued in a paperback edition (University of Massachusetts Press) and includes interviews with many of contemporary poetry's most important figures. In 2022 Ratiner completed his third term as the Poet Laureate for Arlington, Massachusetts. His Laureate project--the weekly Red Letter Poems--continue today and features a diverse range of poets. (steven.arlingtonlaureate@gmail.com).  Steven Ratiner was recently elected as the new President of the New England Poetry Club, one of America's oldest poetry associations