Loss and Its Antonym

Winner of 2023 Sappho’s Prize in Poetry from Headmistress Press Alison Prine’s Loss and Its Antonym reveals an original and powerful lyrical intelligence. In “Ghostwriting the Song of a Small City,” she writes, “now and then a good question finds a crack and spills though,” and that’s what these poems accomplish: in deftly rendered lines and images, Prine unfolds and articulates the deepest feelings with exquisite precision, even as she preserves mystery and surprise. This poet has the uncanny ability to haunt her reader. Poems such as “Strayed,” “Coming Out,” and the five poems titled “Letter to Time” seem among the most powerful lyric poems of our time. —PETER CAMPION, author of One Summer Evening at the Falls In Alison Prine’s stunning new collection, Loss and Its Antonym, we are asked to enter loss’s gravitational pull—losses that could pin a person to a house unhinged. However, Prine provides the buoyancy, the antonym to loss via the beauty of her language—the music, the dazzling precision and command of line, image, tone, voice, and finally her ability to confront the sorrow and grab hold of that rope thrown into the water. This is a book that acknowledges what threatens us—but ultimately celebrates what saves us. —CAROL POTTER, author of What Happens Next is Anyone’s Guess With profound clarity and a mesmerizing display of patience, Alison Prine calls upon loss to forsake its stillness within her second collection, Loss and Its Antonym. Her work consistently delivers the swiftest and most surprising brushstroke of poignant agony. —VI KHI NAO, author of War Is Not My Mother Alison Prine’s spectacular collection, Loss and Its Antonym, sweeps across a lifetime in an attempt to find the right antonym for grief—knowing full-well the bittersweet futility of such a project. The only way is through, and through we go: wrestling family traumas, and the devastating loss of the mother in a car accident, which the speaker survived as a child. Time is the great and ruthless healer of this book, with which the speaker directly converses. While echoes of the past continue to haunt, repair is found in the book’s appreciation for the world: chilly Vermont winters with fresh snow, erotic peonies in season, lush plumages of birds, wounded sugar maples, budding lesbian romances, simple breezes. Here, the poem itself is the only antonym for loss. —BIANCA STONE, author of What Is Otherwise Infinite
ASIN: B0CZ719W17
VSKU: BVV.B0CZ719W17.G
Condition: Good
Author/Artist:Prine, Alison
Binding: Paperback
Note: Any images shown are stock photographs and product may differ from what is shown.
Condition Notes: The item shows wear from consistent use, but it remains in good condition and works perfectly. All pages and cover are intact including the dust cover, if applicable . Spine may show signs of wear. Pages may include limited notes and highlighting. May NOT include discs, access code or other supplemental materials.