Grief's Apostrophe

by Steven Ratiner

Steven Ratiner’s poetry is intimate with death, loss, pain, sorrow. He does not flinch as he peers into what he calls “the chasm of grief.” His poetry, however, does more than take the measure of mortality. Grief’s Apostrophe—the way it speaks to both poet and reader—also allows us glimpses of what Ratiner calls “the everyday holy.” This sense of the sacred might be heard in the sound of a gentle rain, or seen in the dahlias that open early in spring. It might also be found in a memory of a miraculous slice of apple cut by his grandmother. Or it could be felt now as he kisses his new grandchild’s open palm. With honed lines and surprising metaphors, Ratiner plumbs the depths of suffering, and in the process reminds us of the need to treasure all the more the life and time we have.

––Fred Marchant author of Said Not Said (Graywolf Press)

In this heartbreakingly beautiful book, Steven Ratiner constructs a seamless fabric of grief, weaving threads of memory, keen observation of the natural world, variations on religious tradition, and an acute awareness of language. Among the book’s smaller pleasures are complex metaphors, varied syntax, and constant attention to the word: the poet is “marred by, married to this compulsive / language and cannot shut it (shout it) out / even in this house of silence.” Which is fortunate for us, who follow him as he moves from the personal before of witnessing illness and dementia, through a spiritually deepened and globally-expanded exploration of death itself, to an after that finds solace in “love’s continuance, grief’s/temporary reprieve,” as well as the more permanent gifts of art. Steven Ratiner has been championing other poets for many years. This gorgeous collection of his own fine work is long overdue.

––Martha Collins author of Casualty Reports, (University of Pittsburgh Press)

STEVEN RATINER has previously published three chapbooks and been featured in numerous anthologies; his work has appeared in scores of journals in America and abroad including Parnassus, Agni, Hanging Loose, Poet Lore, Salamander, QRLS (Singapore), HaMusach (Israel), and Poetry Australia. For several years, he was the poetry book critic for the Washington Post and, prior to that, The Christian Science Monitor. He’s also written essays on poetry, literature, and art for the San Francisco Chronicle, the Arrowsmith Journal, Horizon Magazine, and Yankee Magazine. Giving Their Word – Conversations with Contemporary Poets was re-issued in a paperback edition (University of Massachusetts Press), including interviews with many of contemporary poetry’s most important figures. In 2022, Ratiner completed his third term as the Poet Laureate for Arlington, Massachusetts. His Laureate project––the weekly Red Letter Poems––continues today and features a diverse range of poets, from up-and-coming talents to some of the most important voices from America and abroad. (steven.arlingtonlaureate@gmail.com). He was recently elected as the new President of the New England Poetry Club, one of America’s oldest poetry associations.

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