Lost Gospels (Brick Books, 2010)
Poetry
by Lorri Neilsen Glenn

A truly moving collection of poetry that dwells in profoundly personal yet universal subject matter. A book a blaze so you feel it. Outspoken and insightful, there is a way she conducts her language so you hear all the right nuances. So the sharp lines sink in. Deeply.

She is exorcising moments of sorrow in many of these poems, and in the rest she is asking the questions we all do. Yet what she is ringing out of these questions is the beauty of life, hammering home a paradox: The things that make a person forlorn are the very things we live and breathe for while they’re here.

Her diction is elegant, exact, and evocative. If every collection of poetry has a poem that never leaves you, that’s what makes Lost Gospels stand out: the abundance of poems that spoke to me, rattled me, so I wouldn’t forget this collection the minute I start reading another one. I think we’re all in this book: We’ve seen many of the scenes Lorri pontificates upon, but she captures it and serves it up in a way only a poet laureate like her can.

In other poems, reflections from a place of sorrow and deep introspection, surprisingly, reflect the hidden beauty of everyday life. When a poet cracks themself open like this, they open their poetry up to a broader and more compelled audience. This book is a valley and I fell right in. Universal and opened-ended observations said, asked, or thought about with such crystalline phrasing that at times a reader might just understand the world a little more. The seeming ease with which she wraps words around the core of what’s being said is what stood out to me. Genuinely moving subject matter, language, and clenching one-liners, tied up into a neat package of poetic radiance.

Some highlights, in my opinion: “Legs,” “Winter Kill,” “Wild,” and “Hemlock Ravine.”

 Lorri Neilsen Glenn was Halifax’s poet laureate from 2005-2009. Click here to read an interview with Lorri at Speaking of Poems’ website. Also, catch her at the 2010 Shelburne Writers’ Festival, where she is conducting a workshop in addition to reading.