Eden in the Rearview Mirror [Paperback]

Susan Elbe (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

In Susan Elbe's rich poems, Eden becomes not paradise but a place of dark foreboding, viewed in "the morphine light of afternoon November," the place of beginnings, "everything left behind in the dust." Eden in the Rearview Mirror is a place we can all look at, without nostalgia and without forgetting.

From the Back Cover

"This exquisite book born from early loss--a young mother--brings Susan Elbe's readers the small solace of the world where birds fly, 'each bird a slash of ink, a declaration rising,' and observations are cut out by the poet left behind: 'What do we look like dreaming? / Smooth black silk at the lip of waterfall.' Not desire, not love, nothing in 'this bright world,' can heal this wound. Only the poems do, for the writer and for us. I can't remember a manuscript that enacts so well a painful or difficult transformation. Read and love this book as I do."--Hilda Raz

"Susan Elbe's luminous lines delicately tip back and forth between outer and inner worlds. As 'the sheer silk of the river wrinkling / salmon-pink in last-ditch sunlight,' her poems sift the phenomenal world for the refraction of memories in time. These are memorable, moving poems."--Arthur Sze

"Eden in the Rearview Mirror, Susan Elbe's new volume of beautifully crafted poetry, reflects an enviable sense of self-awareness, as well as the weight of conviction. These poems touch with searing honesty on matters of love, loss, and disaffection, and yet even the darkest of them somehow seem lit from within--not with flash and glitter, but with a slant, silvery sheen that both illuminates and demystifies. From a moving meditation on the death of the poet's mother to her astute advice on the art of 'Practicing Eternity,' Elbe speaks to the reader in a rich vocabulary that, in her words, 'shows the world shining through windows runneled with rain.'"--Marilyn Taylor

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Product Details

• Paperback: 84 pages
• Publisher: WordTech Communications (July 1, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1933456779
• ISBN-13: 978-1933456775
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 5.8 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 0.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,294,980 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A gentle outpouring of emotion, flowing freely with every word., November 4, 2007

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Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Eden in the Rearview Mirror (Paperback)

Eden in the Rearview Mirror is a collection of original free-verse poetry by author Susan Elbe. Crafted from loss, the verses reflect heartbreak but also the fondness of memories, and reflections upon the timeless beauty of nature. A gentle outpouring of emotion, flowing freely with every word. "If I Loved Him, It Would Be This Way": Night like a giant manta ray brushes / the screens with hushed velvet wings. / Under the slant roof, in a kelp-sway of trees / I lie on a thin, cottage bed / and whether it is wind or rain blowing through, / I only know it's green, / rolling down through moss, deep / into algae, and deeper, where green declines / to the dark verdancy glyphed / in a plum or the body's first minnowing.