Customer Reviews

Wanton Sublime, The

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(Anna Rabinowitz read as part of the Writer's Voice Visiting Authors Series at the West Side YMCA on 8 December 2006. This was my introduction):

Anna Rabinowitz' The Wanton Sublime approaches its topic from so many different angles, and with so many different poetic approaches, that the reader, confronted with the unfamiliar, could find entry into these poems somewhat difficult.

But instead, the overall effect of Anna's simultaneously rigorous yet playful use of language--alliterations running seemingly further than they could go, but working; breaking lines down to their crux without abandoning meaning; fearlessly extending them; doing anything but cleaving to the standard look and feel of a poem--rivets the reader.

With utter frankness and blunt honesty, and a generous helping of righteous anger and justice-seeking fury, The Wanton Sublime is both unique in its style, and hauntingly familiar in its meaning--the search for identity, both intensely personal and manifestly archetypal. By the time we get to the magisterial "It Is Time to Speak of the Lies," the work has taken on a feeling of magnitude, without ever becoming arrogant, self-regarding or strident. It is a difficult thing to do, but in this case, done magnificently.

What if Mary wasn't who we've all always thought her to be? That's the question Anna Rabinowitz poses in this thought-provoking, linguistically daring, sometimes shocking collection.
In The Wanton Sublime, she treats Mary as an unwilling (unwitting?) participant in the conception of her son - was she raped, did she invite it, did she have a choice? To Rabinowitz, Mary isn't symbolic, she is flesh and blood, with feelings, perceptions, expectations, and disappointments. She is also unknowable, and so rather than make Mary a particular person, much of this book contemplates who she might have been, how she might have reacted to both The Annuncation, and then losing her son to world at large, and finally, to death.

Mary was, of course, a Jewish mother, so it's not so strange for Rabinowitz, whose previous book, Darkling, dealt primarily with a Jewish (i.e. Holocaust) theme to be tackling this issue. What is strange and uniquely wonderful is her voice: unafraid to question, unabashedly intelligent, and ranging from fiercely combative to remarkably tender, from anger to joy, terror to sorrow. It's a fascinating take on an under-examined topic.

This is not poetry for the "contemplating my navel" set, but for those who wish to see the world - and their own place in it - with new, daring eyes. Rabinowitz's eyes are so keenly observant, she makes it seem easy. But challenging the status quo never is.
This book challenges, questions, and entertains. A tour de force. A must for any serious reader of poetry, or serious student of The Annunciation.