The fourth collection from award-winning poet Rachel Rose, Marry &
Burn is a journey through a troubled relationship and a troubled city,
charting the territory of love and addiction, and the stories we tell
ourselves about ourselves. Inspired by struggles both personal and
global, these are not gentle poems--they probe deep into comforting
personal and cultural myths, rending them to pieces even as they expose
the beauty in the bright shards that remain.
Although the language of blazing passion resonates throughout the
discussion of love, longing and addiction, the driving rhythms often
resemble more closely the relentless pounding of the ocean: The sky's
cauldron / tips a black storm to swarm the harried / hawk, call, Shame!
Shame! Dawn has come / in flame. The golden glow of the ancient world,
the dark sweetness of fairy tales, overlay these harsh contemporary
moments of rape and addiction, loneliness and poverty, casting them in
the richer light of another era.
The pain of letting go, whether of love, old habits or cherished
personal myths, permeates the collection. But these poems insist that
once the dike has broken, once the myths have crumbled, the possibility
emerges of building something new.
