All That Divides Us: Poems

✍ Scribed by Elinor Benedict

• Publisher: Utah State University Press
• Year: 2000;2003
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 29 KB
• Category: Fiction

✦ Synopsis

2000 Winner of the May Swenson Poetry Award. Foreword by Maxine Kumin. Although the poems in this collection are not narrative, they do present a narrative, gradually unspooling the tale of the poet's rebel aunt, who left the family "to marry a Chinaman" in the 1930's. It's an old story, full of poignancy, mystery, family pride, and doubt. When the aunt returns to die, the poet, now grown, discovers in herself the need to reclaim the connections that her family had severed. She travels to China several times--to learn. Gradually, through wide-eyed, insightful poems, we see the poet rebuild with her Chinese cousins a sense of generation, family, and humanity--bridging over all that divides us.

✦ Subjects

Poetry