This Grave Oasis

This Grave Oasis, Shavin's second poetry collection, is divided by theme into seven sections, all with music-related titles. Hers is a lyrical work "at once prismatic and feral with paradox," according to one reviewer, addressing life, death, consciousness, sorrow, deity, and more - and not without irony and even humor. Her artwork, in grayscale, graces the section dividers. Shavin writes "with a fervor," according to another reviewer, with a book that "chances the profane...a work of vulnerable strength and stark beauty." Its language is musical, its eye unerring, and voice authentic. Shavin takes some chances in this volume, and we allow her such license, because she allows herself, with often gentle, if not genteel, wit and welcomeness, coupled with spates of self-chiding. Her territory and efforts, in the end, concern, as noted in "Black Saturday," "nothing we can name exactly, and nothing we considered naming before."