Of Darkness and Light
50 pages, 6 x 9
1 halftone
Paperback
Release Date:15 Mar 2019
ISBN:9781602233744
Of Darkness and Light
Poems by Kim Cornwall
Edited by Wendy Erd
SERIES:
The Alaska Literary Series
University of Alaska Press
This is the hardest kind of listening. / And who will care? / Most do not. / It’s all applause, / applause applause. / How is it possible / to ask for more than that?
An honest work, stunningly passionate: Kim Cornwall’s spirit-infused poetry weaves family and myth—strong women, wild landscapes, the search for reconciliation in circumstances beyond control—in a radiant language of pain, solace, wonder, and gratitude. This remarkable first and last collection of poetry celebrates and chronicles the borderless area between joy and suffering, like breath after long submersion: for one must breech the surface/where what we most need/ lives.
An honest work, stunningly passionate: Kim Cornwall’s spirit-infused poetry weaves family and myth—strong women, wild landscapes, the search for reconciliation in circumstances beyond control—in a radiant language of pain, solace, wonder, and gratitude. This remarkable first and last collection of poetry celebrates and chronicles the borderless area between joy and suffering, like breath after long submersion: for one must breech the surface/where what we most need/ lives.
‘Of Darkness & Light collects a brief handful of poems by Kim Cornwall. As a child in Washington state she was victim of sexual assault, and as an adult she came to Alaska trying to outpace her memories. Unable to overcome the trauma, she took her own life in 2010, leaving behind poetry that is gathered here by editor Wendy Erd.Only one of the poems directly addresses her assault, but a sense of irrecoverable loss permeates much of the book.’
Kim Cornwall (1967–2010) grew up in British Columbia’s long valleys and vast family ranches. Her poetry was published in Homer News, Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, and New Ink, among others. Her poem, “What Whales and Infants Know”, inspired a state-wide poetry project, Poems in Place, that set poems by Alaska writers on signs in Alaska’s state parks. Wendy Erd is an Alaska poet and coordinator of Poems in Place.
