Books by Barbara Crooker

Description:Barbara Crooker's new book Gold focuses on one of the most profound life-altering experiences possible: losing one's mother. This collection is an elegy, not just to the speaker's mother, but to a lost Eden that cannot be reclaimed. Beginning with a series of lyrics set in autumn, the poems become more narrative, recounting the long illness of Crooker's mother, her death, and the profound journey along the shores of grief. Throughout, Crooker is aware of the complexity and strength of the mother/daughter relationship and the chasm that this loss opens. The book includes other themes: poems about aging and the body, the loss of friends, the difficulties and joys in a long-term marriage, and always, the subtle ways faith influences the way Crooker experiences life. Her work has great scope, spanning the globe from rural Pennsylvania to Ireland, and reaching not just within herself but also outside of herself, to ekphrastic poems on the paintings of Gorky, Manet, Matisse, and others. This is the book of a mature writer, one who demonstrates an awareness of our own impermanence, our brokenness, and one who knows that if our parents go before us, we will have to learn to live with loss. In this book, we see the redemptive power of poetry itself to heal and to console.

Description:Barbara Crooker''s new book Gold focuses on one of the most profound life-altering experiences possible: losing one''s mother. This collection is an elegy, not just to the speaker''s mother, but to a lost Eden that cannot be reclaimed. Beginning with a series of lyrics set in autumn, the poems become more narrative, recounting the long illness of Crooker''s mother, her death, and the profound journey along the shores of grief. Throughout, Crooker is aware of the complexity and strength of the mother/daughter relationship and the chasm that this loss opens. The book includes other themes: poems about aging and the body, the loss of friends, the difficulties and joys in a long-term marriage, and always, the subtle ways faith influences the way Crooker experiences life. Her work has great scope, spanning the globe from rural Pennsylvania to Ireland, and reaching not just within herself but also outside of herself, to ekphrastic poems on the paintings of Gorky, Manet, Matisse, and others. This is the book of a mature writer, one who demonstrates an awareness of our own impermanence, our brokenness, and one who knows that if our parents go before us, we will have to learn to live with loss. In this book, we see the redemptive power of poetry itself to heal and to console.

Poetry. "Rarely has a book of poems been as aptly titled as Barbara Crooker's MORE. Propelled by her hunger for beauty and language, she flies in low over human experience, noticing every gesture, every flavor, every nuance of color and light. Whether she is pondering a spill of salt or stepping into a painting by Hopper, Crooker never for one second lets us forget what it is to be alive and how many ways we have been given to express our gratitude for this simple fact. 'How did all this loveliness / spring from the dark?' she asks in one poem. I don't know the answer, but by the timeI finished reading this book, I could only agree with its final sentence: 'I want all this to last'"--Sue Ellen Thompson