Rare Earths
Rare Earths marks the poetry debut of prize-winning novelist Deena Linett. In narrative and lyric poems, the collection displays the range of the poet’s art as she considers time and love, the movement of mind and—ultimately—loss. Book I of Rare Earths is an intriguing and suspenseful story in verse. Mairi MacIntyre, a young architect, travels to the desolate North Atlantic island of St. Kilda, 110 miles off the coast of Scotland. In journal excerpts and letters to her husband and mother—discovered after Mairi’s death—she comes to terms with her own longings and inner life and her ties to the women who once inhabited the island. Complementing Book I—and adding to the many mysteries in Rare Earths—are the lyric poems in Book II by “the American,” an anonymous poet who was present on the dig with Mairi McIntyre.
Eventually They Come Ashore
the living and the dead
whether you wait for them or not.
There are so many more
of the dead, and the living
drown on stony ground in grief
and anger, and the sea
does not care. We care
for it so deeply, need it
so we cannot comprehend
its treachery. We think
it must be part of Mind
and would not so mistreat us
but it closes its blue eyes,
a shunning, so defeats us.
© BOA Editions, Ltd 2001
Available editions:
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Price: $12.50
$12.50
