Beneath Green Rain - Softcover

Raby, Elizabeth

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0944048641 ISBN 13: 9780944048641

Publisher: Purple Flag, 2015

Synopsis

The deftly rendered poems of Raby’s new collection are a powerful testament to a life fully lived (and, of course, “fully living”). They are paeans to the magical people/animals/things which are integral to human fullness: to childhood memories; to the family dog, Caesar; to a father who spent more time with books and collections than his growing children; to a giving mother brave in life and death; to long deceased grandparents; to the incessant longing for children and grandchildren too far away for frequent visits; and to old poets. Raby’s poetic forays into the natural world, of which there are many, are especially insightful and memorable sketches of bears, snapping turtles, hummingbirds, juncos, mourning doves, house finches, deer, squirrels, and mountain lions. Few poets writing today can match Raby in capturing, with accessible yet exquisite language, the joy, mystery, and fleeting beauty of simply being “alive.” The title poem of the collection, “In Memoriam,” aptly demonstrates Raby’s mastery of poetic craft. In this poem, as in so many other poems of this collection, subject, language and earth are seamlessly fused in epiphanic utterance. The protagonist, “martyred / to burnt bones,” rests in her earthen grave: “Her body is bronze, / her hair is moss / beneath green rain. / Cool water cascades / over her shoulders… / here she is quenched liquid. / Here she is solid grace.” Raby’s skillful execution of the poem and seamless merging of subject, language, and earth bring to mind Seamus Heaney’s “Bog Queen.” Raby’s imagery, like Heaney’s, will resonate in the reader’s mind long after the book is placed back on the shelf. -Larry D. Thomas (2008 Texas Poet Laureate)

About this title

About the Author

Elizabeth Raby is the author of three full-length poetry collections: This Woman, Ink on Snow, and The Year the Pears Bloomed Twice, as well as four chapbooks. She is also the author of the cross-genre work RANSOMED VOICES (Red Mountain Press, 2013). Her poems have been translated into Romanian and she is co- author of a Romanian/English chapbook. Winner of the 2010 Elmer Kelton Award for poetry (Angelo State University), she has been nominated several times for the Pushcart. Raby is a fellow of the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. A graduate of Vassar College (B.A. History) and Temple University (M.A. English/Creative Writing), she has lived in Santa Fe, NM since 2000.

Edition details

• Publisher: Purple Flag
• Publication date: 2015
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0944048641
• ISBN 13: 9780944048641
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 100