Whirlwind is one woman’s frank, witty, mordant, sexy look at the breakup of a marriage and its emotional aftermath. With her characteristic linguistic play and mixture of poetic registers and styles, Sharon Dolin takes her readers on an off-the-tracks emotional ride through the whirlwind that goes by the name of divorce. Hang on tight. Here poems are never merely confessional, but use formal aplomb to ride the white-heat rage, hurt, denial, reflection, regret, wistfulness, desire, and sexual passion as they go hurtling through the many stages of grief after the death of a relationship and the rebirth of a more vital self. Dolin tackles difficult subjects unflinchingly in her poems: such as betrayal and the shame of the one being betrayed, being a parent within a volatile breakup, as well as some startling poems on the reawakening of sexuality and an attention to the natural world and politics. In her poem that won a Pushcart Prize, she dons the mask of the Furies to confront her ex-husband and his lover. A journalist of her own heart, Sharon Dolin has written a brazen collection that seethes with the pressure of a story to tell: cathartic and thrilling in equal measure.
About the Author :
Sharon Dolin is the author of seven books of poetry, most recently Imperfect Present (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2022) and Manual for Living (Pittsburgh, 2016). Her fourth book Burn and Dodge (Pittsburgh, 2008) won the 2007 AWP Donald Hall Prize for Poetry. She is also the author of a prose memoir Hitchcock Blonde (Terra Nova Press, 2020) and two previous books of translation from Catalan: Gemma Gorga’s Book of Minutes (Field Translation Series/Oberlin College Press, 2019), which received grants from PEN and Institut Ramon Llull, and Late to the House of Words: Selected Poems by Gemma Gorga (Saturnalia Books, 2021), winner of Saturnalia Books inaugural Malinda A. Markham Translation Prize, a Finalist for the 2022 Griffin Poetry Prize. The recipient of an NEA Fellowship, Fulbright Scholarship, AWP Donald Hall Prize, Pushcart Prize, and Witter Bynner Fellowship, Dolin is Associate Editor of Barrow Street Press and teaches poetry workshops in New York City.
Review :
In Whirlwind Sharon Dolin's trademark quick wit and candor are infused with an uncanny mix of flirt and fury. Anchored by women who ride and are ridden by the blues, these expert poems shift between ode, testimonial, and elegy. Here is the 'oh boy woe' that prompts serious play; here is the intensity a woman displays when 'her head is lifted above some suffering.' Whirlwind is a book of wonderful whimsy, grace, and bite.
Past praise for Sharon Dolin
"Whatever else she does with the American language, Dolin has fun: the New York City-based poet's fourth volume combines great verbal ingenuity with a vast set of subjects. . . . Attentive readers will find credible emotions, real problems of divided love and of middle-aged worry, amid the sometimes baroque surfaces of Dolin's poems. But the surfaces matter: they are the gift she brings."
Past praise for Sharon Dolin
"She writes at the edge of compression, with such pop to her lines that I'm reminded of Auden's definition of poetry—'memorable speech.'"
Past praise for Sharon Dolin
"The strength of this book is that the [narrative] tapestry changes to a living, hurtful theater: the poems keep breaking their own elegant surface to reveal the shadows of loss and memory and fear. These fine poems pull the reader in—enchanting, disturbing, and consoling, all at the same time."
Examines Dolin's divorce, the end of her marriagae, her husband's affair, her anger and self-isolation, or, in the closing sheaf of poems, her new lover and their erotic rebirh. . . . Some readers . . . may see themselves in her travails, and find both delight and relief.
