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Hilda Raz

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Divine Honors (Wesleyan Poetry Series) Kindle Edition

by Hilda Raz (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

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Winner of the Nebraska Book Award for Poetry (2002)

This elegant and moving collection documents Hilda Raz's experience with breast cancer. The journey, from diagnosis to chemotherapy to mastectomy, from denial to humor to grief and rage, is ultimately one of courage and creativity. The poems themselves are accessible and finely wrought. They are equally testaments to Raz's insistence on making an order out of chaos, of finding ways to create and understand and eventually accept new definitions of good and evil, health, blame, personal boundaries — in short, a new sense of self. These poems remain intimately bound to the world and of the senses, becoming documents of transformation.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

5 1/2 x 8 1/2 trim. LC 97-10481 --This text refers to the digital edition.

Review

“In Divine Honors, we’re in for a head-on collision with grief, the inescapable fact of cancer. Raz conveys joy and hope and love of others and of the natural world turned into poetry, after that horrible discovery and ordeal. The best of the poems are breathtaking –– the sensuous imagery, the sounds she repeats for the pleasure of reading, and the surprising juxtaposition of images. I love this book of poems –– grief and longing turned into poetry.” (Walter McDonald)

“Transgressive and transcendent, Hilda Raz’s new poems are intimately involved with the physical, corporeal world, and constantly making the leap of faith necessary to its re-embodiment in words. These poems push the boundaries of what language can do to enunciate perception. Their beauty, their clarity, their mystery equally compel.” (Marilyn Hacker)

“Divine Honors is a rare book, one that foes honor to its subjects and transcends it at the same time. An unflinching account of the cost and the effects of breast cancer, Divine Honors illuminates much more about a women’s life that has, mysteriously, remained shadowy in so many other accounts of women’s lives. Few books change your way of viewing the world. This one does.” (Susan Fromberg Schaffer) --This text refers to the digital edition.

About the Author

Hilda Raz is Associate Professor of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, and Editor-in-Chief of the literary quarterly Prairie Schooner. Her books include Trans (Wesleyan, 2001), The Bone Dish (1989), What Is Good (1988), and What Happens (1986). --This text refers to the digital edition.

Review

"In Divine Honors, we're in for a head-on collision with grief, the inescapable fact of cancer. Raz conveys joy and hope and love of others and of the natural world turned into poetry, after that horrible discovery and ordeal. The best of the poems are breathtaking -- the sensuous imagery, the sounds she repeats for the pleasure of reading, and the surprising juxtaposition of images. I love this book of poems -- grief and longing turned into poetry."-- Walter McDonald --This text refers to the digital edition.

From Library Journal

"Now, each breath a gift, the soar in air/ of hawks on the highway searching for road kill:/ some sure sign I'm present." Having survived breast cancer, poet Raz (editor-in-chief, Prairie Schooner, and associate professor, English, Univ. of Nebraska) offers up a collection of lyrical, graceful, and challenging poems that speak of life's gifts, its "bruises," and its capricious nature. Not a solace in verse form for the average cancer patient (though her cancer is addressed in a number of the poems), this is instead a work for the serious reader of poetry, who will appreciate her language and style. The poems draw upon Raz's past (e.g., the death of her father), her child ("my harmonious daughter far away/ whose play is radiance. Let her live"), even our connections to nature ("Sow Sister"). In the end, life is what you are given and what you make of it: "Where I am now,/ every ecstasy dissolves/ back into the pool,/ the lap of waves,/ the filled basin." Recommended for poetry collections.?Bette-Lee Fox, "Library Journal"
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the digital edition.