Nessa Rapoport is the author of the novel, Preparing for Sabbath. Her short stories
and essays have been published widely. With Ted Solotaroff, she edited the
anthology Writing Our Way Home. She lives
in New York with her husband and children.
In the collection A Women’s Book of Grieving, Rapoport
walks hand in hand with the reader through the pain and struggles that
accompany the heart when it losses someone. In her poem, “Drowning in Remembrance” we see the rage felt by someone who is grieving,
she writes “I surrender, you have left me, and I hate you for it.” She continues
this theme of a person in grief in her poem, “The Body in Greif”writing, “Now pleasure tastes like ash, your
nakedness is in the grave.”
“From The Darkest Place”
“From the darkest
place, base of the shattered stairs, the stony voice says: Never, and: No, and:
Unforgiven, but I, volleying against despair, still cry out in the habit of
hopefulness. Find me, lift me up, bathe me in forgotten grace.”
This is another poem in which the deeper emotions felt
during grief are displayed to the reader. The lines “From the darkest place” can be inferred
to mean the worst stage of grieving, the hopeless, what do I do now stage. But then
the poem shifts and the darkness is hit with a “volley(ing) against despair.” Even
though what the writer yells at despair may be futile, it shows that she has
not totally lost hope and may one day be lifted up. The poem is similar to the
common theme of grief in the other poems, shown through the discussion of the “darkest
place”, however the ending as discussed shows a different voice then that of
one in total despair.
The poems in this collection are mostly free verse and deal
with the pain and depression of grief. This theme for the poems, gives them a
darker side. While I am in no way a poet, I have dabbled in writing a few just
for the fun of it. As odd as it may sound, I have found that they come out to
sound rather dark as well. So it is something that the author and I have in
common. In difference all of Rapoport’s
poems somewhat connect, while any that I have written have very little to do
with each other. So when I write again I may want to try and connect my poems through
common themes and ideas.
- Rapoport, Nessa. A Woman's Book of Grieving. W. Morrow, 1994.
Will--You are a profound thinker and reader. I'd love to see you explore some of your depths in verse.
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