Bramble - by Susan Stewart (Hardcover)

About the Book

"This seventh collection by acclaimed poet Susan Stewart offers a meditation on difficulty and the powers of nature. In the Biblical book of Judges, the bramble is a figure of destructive leadership, thwarting the lives of trees. In ballads and fairy tales, roses grow "'round the briar" in tragic contrast to heroines who are enveloped by the thorns. One of the oldest English words and an even older symbol, "bramble" reminds us of the entangled and unending struggle that comes with living in time and searching beyond appearances. The rough thicket presents impediments, yet it also bears fruit and delicate flowers. With Bramble, Susan Stewart has composed a book of many forms, including satires, elegies, meditations, and songs. Bramble is also an exploration of the act of making such forms. The book's three sections-"Mirror," "Briar," and "Channel"-link lyric time to our lives as they are situated in history and nature. Reflecting upon illness, grief, and change, the poems follow the progress of day and night, the movement of the seasons, and the path of water from springs to the sea"-- Provided by publisher.

Book Synopsis

This seventh collection by acclaimed poet Susan Stewart offers a meditation on difficulty and the powers of nature.

In the biblical book of Judges, the bramble is a figure of destructive leadership, thwarting the lives of trees. In ballads and fairy tales, roses grow "'round the briar" in tragic contrast to heroines who are enveloped by the thorns. One of the oldest English words and an even older symbol, "bramble" reminds us of the entangled and unending struggle that comes with living in time and searching beyond appearances. The rough thicket presents impediments, yet it also bears fruit and delicate flowers.

With Bramble, Susan Stewart has composed a book of many forms, including satires, elegies, meditations, and songs. Bramble is also an exploration of the act of making such forms. The book's three sections--"Mirror," "Briar," and "Channel"--link lyric time to our lives as they are situated in history and nature. Reflecting upon illness, grief, and change, the poems follow the progress of day and night, the movement of the seasons, and the path of water from springs to the sea.

Review Quotes

"For Stewart, this is what poetic process is: the closely observed emergence of empirical knowledge out of chaos, confusion, darkness. . . . Bramble is the first of Stewart's collections to deal directly with personal suffering, and to grapple with the question of whether suffering is an unavoidable part of self-knowledge. The bramble isn't an uncomplicated metaphor: its prickliness is usually paired with a countervailing sweetness, the blackberry or the rose (Stewart also draws on the word 'briar' and its associations). . . . Stewart is interested not just in the natural metaphor, but in the meanings that other writers have attributed to it."

--Ange Mlinko "London Review of Books"

About the Author

Susan Stewart is a poet, critic, and translator. Her previous books of poetry include Columbarium, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, and Cinder: New and Selected Poems. A MacArthur Fellow and a former Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, she is also a member of the American Philosophical Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Her most recent prose books are Poetry's Nature and The Ruins Lesson. She lives in Philadelphia.