Carpathia

Well-controlled eulogies to her dying father in rural Kentucky, lush lyric and prose poems to lovers and former-lovers in Paris and various Eastern European countries, and compelling anaphoric-based narratives that meander between innocence and experience, body and soul—these are the motifs in Cecilia Woloch's stirring collection, Carpathia. Cecilia is, first and foremost, a relentless traveler (and watcher) of the human condition. Her poems risk the heart, teach and delight, and remind us that we won't leave this earth without our share of love and weeping. What reviewer Willaim Neumire said of her last collection Late, is true of Carpathia: "This collection has a little piece of pleasure for everyone. There are some lyrics in the purest, song-like sense, and there are some lyrical prose-poems that succeed on a more narrative level. This book is a grab-bag of good poems, and each page is a surprise."

"Like taking a year off to travel around the world with a lover (or two), Carpathia finds each day an intoxicating delight.  Likewise, every poem, page after page, is a fine one."

—Herald de Paris

"Her travelling poetics are striking in the way that she defies the borders of 'narrative' and 'lyric'; she combines the two seamlessly, an enviable gift."

—Sacramento News & Review

"Cecilia Woloch's poetic voice has grown more lyrically confident with each new book. Now with Carpathia, she attempts to lyricize each aspect of her narrated life and succeeds with fine breathtaking abandon."

—Carol Muske-Dukes, Poet Laureate of California


© BOA Editons, Ltd. 2009