Review by Steven Stark
I first encountered the poetry of Deborah Leipziger when we both attended a week-long workshop run by Marge Piercy a year ago and I was immediately impressed by the range of her voice and the grace of her verse. Now, I’m delighted to discover – and to tell others – about her new book, Story & Bone (Lily Poetry Review Books) where in almost fifty poems, she displays her lyrical mastery in poems both accessible and profound.
The poems are short – few cover more than a page (and I mean that as a compliment) – but they consistently summon memorable imagery and emotion in a flash. Take The Creation of Turquoise:
It didn’t happen all at once the elders would say.
Then it seldom does.
It was the inexorable chipping away of the sky one kernel at a time.
When the sky touched the earth the impact created
turquoise
to tell the story
of sky and earth colliding
As for range, there are love poems, breakup poems, a tribute to Ukraine, a reverie about Plum Island, and poems about mourning, wolves, maple sugaring, San Juan, and the Northern Lights. This is a poetry book for people who think they don’t like poetry; for those who read it every day; for those trying to hone their craft, and I can’t think of a better book to introduce high school and college students to what poetry can do and mean.
Boston and New England have always been home to some of the nation’s finest poets. You can add Deborah Leipziger to that distinguished list.
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