As I read Eileen Cleary's 2 a .m. with Keats , I felt breathless, suspended in a place of red keys, plum stones, cats, willows, and sphinxes. It would minimize the reach of this brilliant collection to call it an elegy or a eulogy, or even a love story to Lucie Brock-Broido or John Keats - though it is all of those things. Here, in this place where "the elm says Grief and the oak, Grief," the poems shine and scatter across the pages like "a phantom of stars." Cleary engages the rhythms of another world, of "sweet music ...
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As I read Eileen Cleary's 2 a .m. with Keats , I felt breathless, suspended in a place of red keys, plum stones, cats, willows, and sphinxes. It would minimize the reach of this brilliant collection to call it an elegy or a eulogy, or even a love story to Lucie Brock-Broido or John Keats - though it is all of those things. Here, in this place where "the elm says Grief and the oak, Grief," the poems shine and scatter across the pages like "a phantom of stars." Cleary engages the rhythms of another world, of "sweet music honeyed and unheard," where "Lucie reaches forty years back. . . ." Embracing the quirkiness of Brock-Broido's imagery and the love of Keats's line, Cleary creates a s???ance of astronomy, searching for the origins of human and poetic magic, where "looking for signs means I've / once been broken." I will return to 2 a.m. with Keats again and again, to remember Lucie and Keats, to inhale "rose milk . . . mint." - Jennifer Martelli , author of In the Year of Ferraro
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Add this copy of 2 a.M. With Keats to cart. $31.64, good condition, Sold by Bonita rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Newport Coast, CA, UNITED STATES, published 2021 by Nixes Mate Books.
Add this copy of 2 a.M. With Keats to cart. $61.89, new condition, Sold by Bonita rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Newport Coast, CA, UNITED STATES, published 2021 by Nixes Mate Books.
