Barbara Ellen Sorensen’s third collection of poetry, Mary’s River, deals not only with loss and lament, but also discovery, joy, and love.
In the title poem, “Mary’s River” we read the line, “Mary tells me I must love the river because it allowed repentance.” Repentance is a resonant word in this collection. It is a credit to her sure poetic hand that Sorensen deftly takes us from places of sorrow to places of peace and sheer beauty, as in these lines from the prose poem “Evensong,” “Dark green Mormon tea grasses and Indian paintbrushes chant their cantilenas. The quieter blossoms: orange mallow, scarlet gilia, ivory yucca blossoms, and evening primrose fold their colors inward as dusk comes down with its weight of prayers.” Once you read the last poem in this collection, you will want to begin the book again. Such is its power.
Eleanor Swanson, author of Memory’s Rooms
These beautifully lyric poems fiercely explore the interior and the exterior life, at key points of connection: death, breath, resurrection, where the world spins out of control. Poems peppered with gorgeous imagery from the natural world of tundra orchids to barberry bushes, embracing and spiraling in a way that grabs at the soul as if it was stone.
Millicent Borges Accardi, author of Only More So
Loss and silence haunt Barbara Ellen Sorensen’s Mary’s River: Poems. This stellar collection explores a flood’s devastation and nature’s beauty with gorgeous lyricism. A mother mourns the loss of one son and celebrates the life of another. Her words capture both lamentation and awe with sharp crisp images like “spine/ of light.” Sorensen dazzles with precision and wisdom.
Sheryl Luna, author of Pity the Drowned Horses
Barbara Ellen Sorensen delivers to the reader poems imbued with honesty dealing with death, loss, interrupted parenthood and (ultimately) healing. The images never fail to delight. The author has crafted a collection grounded in the familiar, that rings with a keen awareness and a deep humanity. Mary’s River is poignant, loving and alive. Mary’s River is a blessing.
MJ Fievre, author of A Sky the Color of Chaos