Asylum: Improvisations on John Clare - (Pitt Poetry) by Lola Haskins (Paperback)

About the Book

"I recommend this poet to anyone listening for an original voice that is gentle as well as penetrating."--George MacBeth

Book Synopsis

Constellated

When the atoms in my body

return to stars

They will not remember

this five am

out my window,

neither the moor

asleep on the horizon,

nor, across her darkened hips,

the scatters

of bright yellow gorse.

Review Quotes

Anchored by Clare's text, the poems in Asylum range widely-- geographically, emotionally, and technically--and this large-hearted flexibility and suppleness is one of the book's many gifts.-- "Salamander"

Haskins' work here is spare, honed to a sharp and flinty precision. She travels deep into Clare's mind and spirit to reveal profound and deeply moving illuminations about his--and her own--spiritual core.-- "South Florida Poetry Review"

Insightful and beautifully written, Lola Haskins' poetry is as beguiling as the Florida creeks, tupelo trees, and wading birds that grace its pages. Trusting equally in pen and paddle, Haskins perfectly invokes the blink of rain on a lake's surface, the moment when a river's color shifts from clear to amber. In Lola Haskins, water has its own Poet Laureate.--Cynthia Barnett

Lola Haskins writes with the startling freedom and grace of a kite flying and with the variety and assurance of invention that reveal, in image after image, the dream of the waking world.--W.S. Merwin

Ms. Haskins has the wide-eyed power to be tender, vulnerable, and exact. She noses through her amazing world like a baby tortoise, feeling her contours with delicate feet and finding everything weird, and still marvelous.--George MacBeth

About the Author

Lola Haskins is the author of twelve books of poetry and three of prose. Among her honors are the Iowa Poetry Prize, two Florida Book Awards, two National Endowment for the Arts fellowships, several awards for narrative poetry, and the Emily Dickinson Prize from Poetry Society of America. She currently serves as Honorary Chancellor of the Florida State Poets Association. She divides her time between Gainesville, Florida and Skipton, North Yorkshire.