Reviews
"The remarkable poems of Blue Atlas chart an expansive life which spins around an epicenter of loss, but loss is too tame a word, really, for what this speaker bears. 'I am a woman swollen with the history of my dead,' Rich writes, 'a body awash in stories.' She describes an imperiled childhood and a young adulthood that culminates in a coerced midterm abortion, which 'stays suspended in resin / like a tiny scorpion, / transforming anger into amber.' Blue Atlas exquisitely performs the way trauma--the utter loss of self-determination, of choice--can turn a life to seawater, to drift, to 'somehow, the might still be--' mapping 'constellations of in-between,' suspended between deciding and undeciding, from a space outside of the circumference of longing, where poetry lives."--Diane Seuss, author of frank: sonnets "Plaintive and ferocious by turns, the voice in Susan Rich's poems keeps asking the same question: 'Does anyone escape her own story?' The answer, of course, is no, especially when the effects of an early loss keep troubling the later decades of a life, exerting measures of devastation, regret, and nostalgia. Blue Atlas is Rich's sixth book of poems, and it marks an apotheosis--an apotheosis that, as the title suggests, is suffused with amplitude and intimacy, woundedness and wonder. Rich has arrived at a place of wisdom in her work, enthralled by still another essential question: 'what is this heaviness // embedded in our good luck-- / this sharp, bronzed hinge?'"--Rick Barot, author of Moving the Bones " Blue Atlas is both compelling and challenging, nuanced and boundary-breaking. Susan Rich fearlessly plunges her readers into discussions that many writers avoid, guiding them through with a speaker as engaging as the various poetic forms she uses. Rich is a bold poet, whose work resonates in our present moment." --Tyler Truman Julian, The Shore " Rich's language is honest, raw, and emotion-driven. The poems retell thespeaker's story from different vantage points, using a range offorms--including questionnaires, an outline for a freshman essay, and acurriculum vitae, among others--to explore feelings of guilt, regret,loneliness, and self-doubt"--Leonora Simonovis, The Poetry Foundation, "The remarkable poems of Blue Atlas chart an expansive life which spins around an epicenter of loss, but loss is too tame a word, really, for what this speaker bears. 'I am a woman swollen with the history of my dead,' Rich writes, 'a body awash in stories.' She describes an imperiled childhood and a young adulthood that culminates in a coerced midterm abortion, which 'stays suspended in resin / like a tiny scorpion, / transforming anger into amber.' Blue Atlas exquisitely performs the way trauma--the utter loss of self-determination, of choice--can turn a life to seawater, to drift, to 'somehow, the might still be--' mapping 'constellations of in-between,' suspended between deciding and undeciding, from a space outside of the circumference of longing, where poetry lives."--Diane Seuss, author of frank: sonnets "Plaintive and ferocious by turns, the voice in Susan Rich's poems keeps asking the same question: 'Does anyone escape her own story?' The answer, of course, is no, especially when the effects of an early loss keep troubling the later decades of a life, exerting measures of devastation, regret, and nostalgia. Blue Atlas is Rich's sixth book of poems, and it marks an apotheosis--an apotheosis that, as the title suggests, is suffused with amplitude and intimacy, woundedness and wonder. Rich has arrived at a place of wisdom in her work, enthralled by still another essential question: 'what is this heaviness // embedded in our good luck-- / this sharp, bronzed hinge?'"--Rick Barot, author of Moving the Bones " Blue Atlas is both compelling and challenging, nuanced and boundary-breaking. Susan Rich fearlessly plunges her readers into discussions that many writers avoid, guiding them through with a speaker as engaging as the various poetic forms she uses. Rich is a bold poet, whose work resonates in our present moment." --Tyler Truman Julian, The Shore, "The remarkable poems of Blue Atlas chart an expansive life which spins around an epicenter of loss, but loss is too tame a word, really, for what this speaker bears. 'I am a woman swollen with the history of my dead,' Rich writes, 'a body awash in stories.' She describes an imperiled childhood and a young adulthood that culminates in a coerced midterm abortion, which 'stays suspended in resin / like a tiny scorpion, / transforming anger into amber.' Blue Atlas exquisitely performs the way trauma--the utter loss of self-determination, of choice--can turn a life to seawater, to drift, to 'somehow, the might still be--' mapping 'constellations of in-between,' suspended between deciding and undeciding, from a space outside of the circumference of longing, where poetry lives."--Diane Seuss, author of frank: sonnets "Plaintive and ferocious by turns, the voice in Susan Rich's poems keeps asking the same question: 'Does anyone escape her own story?' The answer, of course, is no, especially when the effects of an early loss keep troubling the later decades of a life, exerting measures of devastation, regret, and nostalgia. Blue Atlas is Rich's sixth book of poems, and it marks an apotheosis--an apotheosis that, as the title suggests, is suffused with amplitude and intimacy, woundedness and wonder. Rich has arrived at a place of wisdom in her work, enthralled by still another essential question: 'what is this heaviness // embedded in our good luck-- / this sharp, bronzed hinge?'"--Rick Barot, author of Moving the Bones