In her collection When Enormous Questions Rock the World, Priscilla Ellsworth reminds us there are at least two people involved in any loss: the one who is left, and the one who is going away. This book encompasses many kinds of leavings. Ellsworth reminds us that suffering isn't the only aspect of separation; there is also a sense of wonderment. Against the backdrop of all that is both glorious and dark in nature, Ellsworth tackles the death of father, a close friend, and other unexpected losses. She guides us to wisdom through images suffused with spiritual energy, and respect for the world. So much of this book is like a prayer — these poems are practiced meditations, and that is their considerable strength. — Mary Jane Nealon

When Enormous Questions Rock The World

Biographies & Memoirs

Ellsworth, Priscilla Wear

Historical

Railroad Street Press

This is a emotionally charged tribute to the author's late husband, detailing his life and death as well as his reappearance in various guises. Rooted in the elegance and reality of nature and family, Priscilla Ellsworth's poems become a gift, a primer on 'how to live / and how to die.' In an early poem she chides, 'Husband, wake up!' She is a wife who wants her husband's presence. Life: travel with family, work in the garden with him, the joy of his peonies - 'What if we had lived like this all our days?' Death arrives midway in the book: 'So this is it.' That single line, poignant, direct, straight to the heart. The poem 'Dawn Fire' which follows with its description of hunters and needless death takes one's breath away. In 'New Widow, ' when Ellsworth writes, 'For now my heart is a garden that cannot be turned, ' she keeps us in the rhythm of the natural world: for all its death, it will bring spring. Here are poems to trust."

Rutted Field of the Heart

Literature & Fiction

Poetry

Antrim House

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Books by Ellsworth, Priscilla Wear