“WOMAN STANDING IN FRONT OF THE MENDHENHALL GLACIER”
Warmth and recession are not to be
feared. Chattermarks in bedrock.
What if you were not my only reason
for being here? If you advance, what
might it take to surrender. Pressed
my whole torso into the wind shear,
everything felt elemental. Inside,
I could barely stand the weight
of accumulation. Downwasting
to relieve some of the pressure.
In the barren zone I could tell you wanted
to be touched, but coiled back. A cold stream
in your withdrawal. My heels
rocking in the wet footprint.
PRAISE FOR SARAH ARONSON
“This poet possesses a precision both spare and fierce. And Other Bodiless Powers is cut from the same cloth as the poems of Lorine Niedecker in that they both read a landscape, down to its smallest aspect, and create from these thickets, fogs, and skiffs of snow a human language. When Sarah Aronson zeroes in, the world opens.”
— ANDREW GRACE
author of A Belonging Field, Sancta, and Shadeland
“Sarah Aronson’s poems cultivate presence. As if sculpted by the elemental forces of wind, rain and time And Other Bodiless Powers gives form to feelings and ideas that can only emerge through deep attention to a world where ‘what is torn/is also tender.’ This thrilling debut renders a poetics akin to the warblers who ‘hook their tiniest/songs to fog.’’’
— ROB SCHLEGEL
author of The Lesser Fields, January Machine, and In the Tree Where the Double Sex Sleeps
“In this searching debut, Aronson carries out the essential ‘sourcework’ of looking deep into the intersection of landscape and self. What I admire is that such a confluence yields no certainty or dogma; instead, the poet gives us a vision rife with mystery and lyric invention. In the tradition of Gary Snyder and Lorine Niedecker, Aronson steps ‘full weight / into a world,’ and she does so using a language all her own. This is a collection to celebrate.”
— MICHAEL McGRIFF
author of Home Burial, Black Postcards and Early Hour
