A New England Book Award Finalist. "Rich with shining interiors and
tactile relationships, delicate human to delicate earth...Poems acting
as guides, helping us navigate and remember..."--New York Times
Magazine
Susan Barba's collection of poems resembles the spheroid stone of its
name; when cracked open, a glittering and fascinating crystalline
structure is revealed but the stony sphere she offers us, and the beauty
within, is nothing less than the earth.
The word "geode" also houses within it "ode," a praise poem. With both
anguish and exaltation, Barba considers our time within the larger scale
of deep-time. The species decreasing in number and disappeared and the
possibility of human extinction haunt this book, while new generations
and the possibility of renunciation of our old ways animate it. There is
wonder here as well. She writes...
Oak, whose girth
exceeds my reach
forever I am
at your feet,
looking up.
Here is the world, Barba reminds us, like a ball, in our hands. Poems
include "Earthwards," "Letter from Gaia," "River," and "Final Letter of
Stone."
geode is for anyone who loves poetry's uniquely precise and enduring
power.