Waiting for Achilles

Poetry. In her stunning new book of visionary poems, WAITING FOR ACHILLES, the poet, Jo Sarzotti, intimately explores those caught moments of our deepest, pained humanness–irretrievable loss, existential terror, the forever unforgivable–and, too, those ecstatic encounters with beauty and releases of joy that take our breath away.–Emily Fragos Sarzotti uses language to say all that is beautiful is not pretty: Sometimes it’s terrifying. We open every book we read with a certain amount of expectancy. We know it will be a settling of accounts, a construction of some vitality; however, it’s rare to be touched every second by the raw uncompromising psyche and therefore it’s impossible not to listen to this writer.–Grace Cavalieri

As if cut through, cut with, the edge of a blade, these poems excavate for beauty, unbury for pain and present the condensed essence of both (‘So much pain / such a small shadow on the bone’). Ancient feuds, flawed gods and humans, a personal mythology of horse (‘His deep animal eye / holds a part of me / I won’t get back’)–all enact a violent concision, an exactitude, line by line, image by image, swerve by swerve. This is a book of strife and shiver and transformation–thrilling to read and a joy to contemplate.–Joan Houlihan