Customer Reviews

Cold River: Poems

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I can add little to what others have said here. Joan Larkin brings to bear the entire weight of her experiences of loss, as well as those of joy in self-definition and the quest for a community.

I had the great fortune to work in a year-long conference course with Joan at Sarah Lawrence College. As a teacher she possesses the same qualities in evidence in COLD RIVER: honesty, courage, and a deep respect for life's lessons. Buy this book!!!

I had the unique privilege of studying with Ms. Larkin last year, as a senior in college, but I had never read any of her work until I purchsed this collection, and was immediately blown away by her mastery of lyric form and cruel truth-telling. This is not a book for the faint of heart, since Larkin explores such timely issues as a loved one who is dying of AIDS, and the loss of lovers and stability in an ever-complicated world. She knows initmately how to break a scene down to its component parts and let you see, touch, smell, hear and feel what she examines with such precision. If you're an old poetry fan, or are dipping your toes into the genre for the first time, this is an excellent example of what is true and good in modern urban poetry.