I Went Looking For You

ISBN: 1934289817

Author: Lepson, Ruth

Condition: New

Pure and graceful and deep: it takes much time to come to those three. Here they are. Fragile and objective, the view of the world from here. It is how a person sees when looking. Very clear. -Fanny Howe These wonderful poems by Ruth Lepson are deeply felt meditations on family, friends, lovers, the people she cant leave behind. The book begins with poems about places, mainly Swampscott, Massachusetts, a town on the ocean that she loves to visit. Time Line then makes something like a drawing out of the past, and Function Theory suggests a sort of mathematical model of a girls thought processes. These are followed by several delicate poems about Ruths aging parents and others about deceased friends. This private world is then enlarged, often with humor, to include strangers both overheard and seen, as well as works of art. These are the things I can name out of which she makes her life. The last half of the book is a tender and perceptive series of poems about love that persists across disconnections, loss, and time. Idyllic and dissonant scenes are recalled. Dreams prolong the dissolved relationships. And finally, the dreamer wakes up surrounded with life. - Joel Sloman