Customer Reviews

Frozen Spring: Poems (First Series: Poetry)

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"Weaning," the first lyric poem in Margo Stever's, FROZEN SPRING, sets the tone for the rest of the book. Here is the ever-changing world we all live in-dark, delicate, and beautiful in surprising ways. "Across the road a man is raking leaves. / This is the way it will always be. / He holds a gold pronged rake." Throughout the book, Stever combines her lyric and narrative skills. In a poem called, "The Nightly Weeping Rock," she imagines the brutal story behind the figures etched in a wood block. She draws a picture of the murderer, "a stranger so quiet even he forgets his breath," not judging him, not giving us some sensational detail, but letting us assess him, see him for ourselves. In addition to talent and a fresh perspective, Stever has great respect for her reader. What an honest and extaordinary gift she offers us.

"Nothing can happen until the men / stop torturing the mongoose," Margo Stever writes in "Playa Cofresi," one of the dark and beautiful poems in FROZEN SPRING. But of course the men don't stop, and Stever is equally relentless, in the best sense, prosecuting her vision of a world of cruelty, tenderness and loss. Stever's superb command of craft makes for a compelling, memorable read. These are strong, vivid, uncompromising poems that will haunt you for days and weeks after you close the book.

"Frozen Spring" offers a beautiful voyage around new places in nature and in the human experience. The poems show great kindness to a world that leads both the poet and the reader into ironic and surprising seasons.