Still Brooding on a Strong Branch: Poems by Carol Leavitt Altieri

Carol Altieri's deeply moving poems revolve around the death of her daughter, Alicia. Moving from a place of darkness where "The land is burned dark / and I can not find a taper to light," she ultimately affirms life by utilizing crocus as a metaphor for her spirit that is "always looking ahead, / stalwart even in late snow." Exploring Alaska, Costa Rica, the coast of Cornwall and New Zealand, Altieri struggles with loss, revealing, "over granite boulders, I reach / for handholds." These are not poems that can be skimmed over, forgetting the last while reading the next because they are written with an unsentimental voice that provides an uncompromising encounter with the reality of death. Altieri presents collages of the natural world in lush poems that look closely at the physical cycles of the earth in order to bring together the shards of her life created by her daughter's tragic death. Exploring her personal history and the loss of her daughter, Atieri places them in the wider context of the natural world by creating powerful poems which become hymns that "emerge from shrubbery. " Her abiding love for her daughter darts in and out of the collection, as Altieri learns that in spite of death, Alicia is everywhere she "walked, climbed, hiked and skied." Finally, the force of love in the human heart prevails. Still Brooding on a Strong Branch teaches us how to light a torch that the heart can follow through the darkness. Vivian Shipley