Instead I found a still small voice of calm. I was expecting gushing romance, a whirlwind of passion, something that would wrench my heart and take my breath away. Her memoir of their love, a mix of long form poetry and sanguine reflection, begins with that meeting. It took her three years to engineer a meeting with him.

She decided she was in love with him and needed to meet him. She fell in love with his words, so the story goes, but more than that. Smart was lucid, resilient, hardworking, and responsible in her love-madness.Įlizabeth Smart was in London and picked up a book of George Barker’s poems. This is a book about one creature’s obdurate desire to love and be loved, no matter what. This, from Yann Martel’s foreword, encapsulates the book: It came up as a prose poem and its subject matter intrigued me. I bought this recently after looking for poems set in Grand Central Station.

Tags 6degrees 20 Books of Summer 1001 Books Africa America Art Australia Autobiography Biography Black culture Black history Blogging about blogging Book review Britain Canada Comedy Crime Dystopia Economics England Fantasy Feminism Film France Germany Graphic novel Historical fiction History Horror Humour Independent Publisher India Influx Press Italy Japan Journalism LGBTQ London Mental health Meta Music Mystery New York Paris Philosophy Picture Prompt Book Bingo Poetry Politics Psychology Racism Randomness Religion Russia Science Science Fiction SciFi Scotland Short stories Six Degrees of Separation Sociology Spain Speculative fiction Sweden Thriller Tokyo Translation Travel United Kingdom USA Wales War Women's Prize for Fiction Women in translation Women in translation month Women read women

By grand central station i sat down