Oz

by Nancy Eimers

Oz"In Eimers’ Oz, the squared-off rooms of prose press against the open-roofed, wall-less abodes of poems. Dollhouses, bomb shelters, Cornell’s boxes — Eimers is fascinated by those fascinated with such “contraption[s] of inner space.” Space managed and manageable. But around such contraptions, one feels the larger uncontainable world lurking, leering. From encapsulated space, a self sees out and gathers strength to step out. This dance between estrangement and communion — it’s part of how we survive; it’s the jittery way, these poems beautifully suggest, we move toward compassion."
—Nance Van Winckel

"There is as true a feeling of consolation delivered by this book as any I have read in recent years. Nancy Eimers makes a mirror out of our tears, and then turns that mirror at an angle so that we can see what lies hidden from our sight. Her poems answer Basho’s great question, one of the essential questions of all lyric poetry: 'my neighbor — how does he live, I wonder?' This is that rare book whose compassion is as deep as its craft."
—David Rivard

Oz by Nancy Eimers

Carnegie Mellon University Press
Pub Date: 01/10/2011
Price: $15.95
Cover: Paper
ISBN: 978-0-88748-532-9

Order: www.cmu.edu/universitypress/pages/order.html