Pursuit

Pursuit is a spin of blue and whisper, a "lake soul reflecting sky bones." In this collec-tion, a blend of lyric and prose poems, we learn about the phases of the moon, and the pull be-tween blue and green, and a story too old to be told because a new one has begun. Neuberg's voice is wisdom all dolled up in gossamer and swirl, but always with a solid, inescapable gravi-tas. A feast of sensory image and craft, and as seen elsewhere in Neuberg's work-the relentless but always gentle questioning-"who were you, who are you," and, of course," who will you be?"-Francine Witte, author of Café Crazy

Here is the story of a woman in pursuit of herself-of the disparate experiences that comprise a life. Here, "the woman is researching how many angles memory has." She allows herself to spin in the cyclical nature of time and emotion to find a soft philosophical footing, and from there she writes. In an alphabetical sweep of poems, from imagist and experimental to lyrical and narrative, Karen Neuberg gathers life's varied threads and weaves them into a plush tapestry. Neuberg's po-etry is masterful, sparse and sincere. The reader falls easily into her language and cadence and accepts her invitation to make a similar journey of personal integration. Neuberg's intent is genu-ine as her collection of spiritually aware and evocative poems. This is a book to buy for every person you know who has traveled long and wide in contemplation. Pursuit is seduction by metaphor; it is the poet's loving embrace.

-Catherine Arra, author of Writing in the Ether, Tales of Intrigue & Plumage, Loving from the Backbone, and Slamming & Splitting

The poems in Pursuit are spare and yet dazzlingly potent, written as an invocation, a "Red State of Mind." Themes of remembrance, yearning, and mortality flicker behind a scrim of voices, as if Neuberg were engaged in a dialogue with H. D. Past and present coalesce. The poet writes, "I love the girl I used to be ..." Verbs vibrate into nouns. Music thrums through these in-cantatory meditations: "[I]nto the daily, into the wars / and fires, into the weeping and floods." After all, Neuberg is summoning "[a] girl with chiaroscuro eyes. / Vector hands. A grabber. A gotcha." And we, the readers, cannot look away, for the poet has reclaimed our former selves.

-Dean Kostos, author of This is Not a Skyscraper, winner of the Benjamin Saltman Poetry Award, selected by Mark Doty