“I know how things sink in;” drawing deeply from the ancient land, the collective soul that hums beneath her feet, and in her words, Caroline Malone does, indeed, know, and reveals to us that knowing, of fear and prayer and loss, of the paths we make to seek—and find—our own souls, even when they seem to flee from us, into the history of the secret city of Oak Ridge, to the rubble at the feet of the Parthenon, into the arms of the Civil War ghosts who linger at the shoulders of every Southerner. Caroline Malone’s Dark Roots is a fearless passage through the persistence of sorrow, but more importantly, it is a resounding tribute to the resilience of Love, the love that lies, as the title poem reveals so beautifully, “in the dark roots that contain the lights,/when the domain of God is reserved for those/who dare occupy the land with gratitude...” In “Praise the Every Day,” Malone reminds us, “remember, the whole heart you were given,/the passionate kiss always forming,” and these poems, in their quiet elegance and yearning, in their velvet detail and natural texture, take us to that desperately needed remembering, courageous in their descent into the darkness, and redemptive as they return us, again and again, to the light, and the Love, that we are.
Mary Carroll-Hackett, author of The Night I Heard Everything and A Little Blood, A Little Rain
“Stark and haunting, these poems dig deep to the roots of identity and the self.”
Julia Watts, author of Gifted and Talented
