“A cat perches on a bare branch, arched as if to pounce – a menacing image on the cover of Susan Glickman’s latest collection of poetry, Cathedral/Grove. Against a black background the cat appears almost white and moonlit, while the bare branches contour the feral creature. Its feline limbs grasp parallel branches, while its trunk rests as if it were a nurse log. Cathedral derives from seat, and the cat sits; grove derives from branch in this interconnected realm of flora and fauna. “Cathedral/Grove” relates to Notre Dame in Paris and to MacMillan Provincial Park on Vancouver Island, as Glickman’s poems span geography and history.
The epigraph to this book, from Izumi Shikibu’s The Ink Dark Moon, echoes the cover’s moonlit sonatina: “the moonlight also leaks / between the roof planks / of this ruined house.” Amidst planetary ruins, and between the sublime and picturesque, Glickman’s words restore domestic and natural order, for her baby grand piano lurks in the background sounds and is itself a miniature cathedral/grove responding to Bach and “tuned to the same vibration / like instruments to concert A.”
Cathedral/Grove by Susan Glickman
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