Handwriting
is Michael Ondaatje's first new book of poetry since The Cinnamon Peeler.
The exquisite poems collected here draw on history, mythology, landscape,
and personal memories to weave a rich tapestry of images that reveal
the longing for--and expose the anguish over--lost loves, homes, and
language, as the poet contemplates scents and gestures and evokes a
time when "handwriting occurred on waves, / on leaves, the scripts
of smoke" and remembers a woman's "laughter with its / intake
of breath. Uhh huh."
Crafted with lyrical delicacy and seductive power, Handwriting reminds
us of Michael Ondaatje's stature as one of the finest poets writing
today. |
