A tender poetry collection considering home, family, and personal and
ecological loss.
Liza Katz Duncan's debut collection is a poignant exploration of the
unpredictable shifts that shape our lives. Given considers the notions
of home and family and how to survive the changes and losses associated
with both. Duncan conjures her home, the New Jersey Shore, in clear and
unsentimental lines: "Call of the grackle, / whine of the turkey
vulture. Blighted clams, // raw and red in their half-shells." Duncan's
poems also explore the devastation brought to this place and its
community by Superstorm Sandy and the continued impacts of climate
change.
Interwoven into this thread is the narrator's miscarriage; the parallels
between the desecrated landscape and the personal catastrophe further
contribute to the layers of tenderness in this collection, as Duncan
urges us to remember and to witness. Despite tragedy and loss, Given
is imbued with persistent, dogged hope, showing how survival persists
amongst the wreckage, and from this debris is a path towards healing our
grief.
Given was the winner of 2022 Autumn House Rising Writer Prize in
Poetry.
