“There may be,” says writer Ken Foster, “just one universal story: somebody lost something.” Afterwords tells a story of loss, but these poems are reminders that the “afterwords” can also speak of surviving with what remains. Here’s one:
So this is where we live now
where arriving and leaving
jostle crowded and unseen
in a single space,
where the air is thick with powder husks
of lived and unlived time,
where we float iridescent
on the wide surface of breath.
This is where we live,
holding our treasured ghosts
tight around us,
reading runes that speak to us
the stories of a million destinations
and all we have in common
is how we lead the same lives.
This is where we have always lived,
within the eyelash width
between now and not now.
It is not thin memory
that walks beside us in the world:
we are bound
to solid molecules
of was and is
and yet to be,
and there are empty chairs at every table.
What people are saying…
“Ellen Steinbaum has crafted an exquisite elegy, an achingly precise roadmap for our journeys to fear, loss, immeasureable heartache and ultimate understanding. In Afterwords , an unflinching chronicle of her husband’s illness and death, each poem is sharp and lyrically textured with an insistent current of rage and confusing pulsing beneath. This book will not make you comfortable – but it will leave you changed.”
— Patricia Smith
“This collection of poetry by Ellen Steinbaum should be read in the worn comfortable seat of your favorite chair, with, perhaps, a glass of wine or a complacent cat purring beside you. It is poetry to quietly contemplate, by a woman who is a veteran of life. It should be required reading for those of us on the first half of the roller coaster ride. There are many gems in this treasure chest of verse. …It is a book that will teach you about the craft, and more importantly life.”
— Doug Holder, Ibbetson Update
“The writing is exquisite and metaphysicial and thought-provoking….(her) poems are calm meditative reflections that equally burn and touch your soul. The best poetry book I have read in months…”
— Lucid Moon Poetry Website
