Every Ravening Thing: Poems(Pitt Poetry Series)

Author of two previous collections of poetry: BLACK HOPE (1997) and ANTIDOTE FOR NIGHT (2015). de la O is also the publisher of the journal ASKEW. Keats at Fourteen She dozes, her nails fretted against the linen’s border, a hectic rose flaming each cheek. Her lips move, no words. The boy is guardian spirit, no one but he enters this sickroom where his mother fades, home finally after six years—failures, disgrace. Scarlet daughter, neighbors hiss, slave to appetite, but John is single-minded—she will live. No one but he gives her the tincture of mercury—one tenth of a grain daily, dabs the sweat of her fevers away, a basket of withered poppies at his feet. He pierces each capsule with a needle, drops it in a small glazed crock to warm near the stove, sweat out the opium. Then he’ll add wine, saffron, nutmeg. It takes time, the hour darkens. He cups his hand to light the votive. She moans a furred voice from webbed lungs, a cup of black blood brimming, the pilgrim is fleeing the City, he leans in closer, the City of Destruction, takes her clammy hand, that place also where he was born, so close now he’s breathing her, “Johnny,” she cries, “lift me up, Johnny, your father is here in the room.

About the Author :
Marsha de la O is the author of Antidote for Night, winner of the 2015 Isabella Gardner Award, and Black Hope, winner of the New Issues Press Poetry Prize and winner of an Editor’s Choice, Small Press Book Award. Other awards include the Morton Marcus Poe

Review :
At its heart is a profound empathy for human suffering of all kinds, but the poems offer neither solace nor cure. Each feels like a brave experiment that extracts a question from the world then answers it. In almost every poem I feel an unanticipated shock of recognition, which happens only when profundity, clarity, and a fierce allegiance to truth combine in one intelligence. Tough, searing, and dangerous, these are among the rare necessary poems of our age.--Chase Twichell This is poetry meant to open hearts and change attitudes in fundamental and necessary ways, poetry of witness and utility. It is also often deeply moving.-- "South Florida Poetry Review" Every Ravening Thing presents a matchless intensity and intellectual grit, a fearless investigation into the world amplified by a vision that is both cosmic and detailed in our common suffering. This is a brave book of poetry.--Christopher Buckley What is ferocious - ravenous - here is the poet's driven need to tell things as they truly are, which means it's not always a pretty picture that she so carefully assembles for the reader. And I love the raucous regard she has for diction: reckless and powerfully inventive and fresh the way air can be fresh. All of this is held together by a commitment to the music that drives these poems in a way that soothes the ear. Every Ravening Thing could serve as a warning to all of us about our failures as men and women, and as a celebration of the good we're capable of doing and in that way is a necessary part of our reading.--Bruce Weigl