Red

Winner of the 2002 Perugia Press Prize, the Publishing Triangle Audre Lorde Poetry Prize, and Lambda Literary Award Finalist, Red introduces the visceral and seductive voice of poet Melanie Braverman. The shape of the book and many of the poems in it mimic the expanding spiral of Cape Cod, where Braverman lives. This peninsular shoreline setting informs her poetry, poetry that is unselfconsciously about the search for love and security in the face of grief and within a community. In Cusp, Braverman writes, watch the bird hover and dip / and disappear below the horizon of the tall grass, wait then, just / before the sky loses its light for good, and your hands grow unusually chill / in the new air, the head of the heron will bob like a buoy back out of the grass…. Written with raw energy and astonishing images, Red showcases Braverman’s acute sensitivity to her atmosphere, both natural and peopled, and is evidence of a gifted, powerful voice.