Crossing Over: Poems

by Priscilla Long

Overview

Long's work begs to be read aloud in order to savor the rich language and rhythm she instills in each poem. She explores the beauty of specific bridges while employing them as a metaphor for crossings to death (a sister's suicide), eros, and art. Part elegy, the book also explores living, remembering, and celebrating.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780826323965
Publisher:	University of New Mexico Press
Publication date:	07/15/2015
Series:	Mary Burritt Christiansen Poetry Series
Pages:	80
Product dimensions:	8.70(w) x 5.80(h) x 0.40(d)

About the Author

Priscilla Long is the author of three books, including The Writer's Portable Mentor: A Guide to Art, Craft, and the Writing Life. Her fiction, essays, and poetry have appeared in the Southern Review, American Scholar, Smithsonian, Fourth Genre, and elsewhere.

Table of Contents

1 Memory's Load

Sister Ghost 3

Queen of the Cut 4

Psalm to Stones 5

Elegy for Susanne 6

Memory's Load 7

History 8

Thief of Fire 9

My Old Flame 10

After Meditation 12

Body Poem 13

What Remains 14

2 Why the Fremont Bridge and the Aurora Bridge Don't Speak

Seasonal Affective Disorder 17

High Road Home 18

Traffic 19

We Hold These Truths 20

Why the Fremont Bridge and the Aurora Bridge Don't Speak 21

Pantoum for a Pontoon Bridge 22

Nile Valley Landslide 23

To My Country in Time of War 25

The Red Queen 26

PTSD Poem 27

Cliffs of Fall 28

Green River Blues 29

3 Susanne's Teapot

Hot Words 33

Another Poem for Irene 34

Send Word to Lorca 35

Reading the Book of the Dead 36

Susanne's Teapot 37

Visitations 38

Shadows and Dust 40

Mount Tahoma 41

Aubade 42

Kaddish for Susanne 43

4 The Gong Strikes Its Own Hour

Rhapsody 47

Love Poem 48

To Compose a Poem 49

Poet's Palette 50

The Poet Cleans Out Her Desk Drawer 51

Writer's Prophecy 52

Calder 53

Schuyler 54

Light at Aries 55

Dutch Interiors 56

What the I Ching Said 57

Beauty 58

Decomposition 59

Scavengers 61

Bridge Pose 62

God-Trails 63

Journey 64

Acknowledgments 65

Notes 67

About the Author 71

Editorial Reviews

"No two people deal with loss in exactly the same way, which is one reason why Priscilla Long's Crossing Over: Poems is so remarkable. . . . In writing out her grief over her sister's suicide, her emotions universally resonate with the reader. Through interlocking themes and images, she articulates what it means to come to terms with the past in order to move forward into the future."—The Hooch

"Priscilla Long curates the places of her heart—shows them to us and leaves them safe. . . . She upturns language from patriotic statements, and joins the ranks of Mary Oliver and Louise Glück as celebrators of local nature."—The Seattle Star

"Long presents a collection of poems that explores deeper aspects of Pacific Northwest, interlacing elegies, including for her deceased sister, with our dreamy landscapes. She uses bridges as metaphors to evoke the world around us."—The Seattle Times

"Memory is a bridge, poet Priscilla Long reminds us in this shimmering, elegantly structured collection: these poems lead back to the bright sources of longing and grief, guided by Long's excellent and playful ear, passion for language, and spine-tingling insights. Crossing Over interlaces elegies—including a gorgeous series for a lost sister—with remembered love, human tragedy, dreamy sensation, moody northwestern landscapes, and bridges—real and metaphorical. The joy of creation leavens every poem. I have long anticipated this book: it was so worth the wait."—Kathleen Flenniken, author of Plume: Poems

"Priscilla Long would take a bridge anywhere to reach her lost sister, and these poems are replete with bridges literal and metaphoric. In her quest and resolve, these words resonate from 'Kaddish for Susanne': 'All praise to all that is.'"—Carole Simmons Oles, author of A Selected History of Her Heart: Poems

"The sounds of Priscilla Long's poems take their place in creation, so lush the vowels, so euphonious her rhymes, so full her catalogues, so keen her grief and boldness, so brave her confrontation of love and loss and death and the solace of crow and bone and language. This book begs to be read out loud, sings for its supper, and offers us comfort as a gift."—Hilda Raz, Mary Burritt Christiansen Poetry Editor

"This is a poet obsessed with bridges and crossings, as the title of the collection implies: chaos to order; grief to acceptance; solitude to connection; confusion to understanding; life to death; past to present; dark to light—themes as old as poetry."—Samuel Green, author of All That Might Be Done

From the Publisher