Rave: Poems 1975–1998

Olga Broumas

Collecting Broumas’s poems from two decades of celebrated work, Rave offers a definitive assessment of a unique voice in American poetry. Broumas is a poet of Eros in every aspect. Born in Syros, Crete, she follows in the ancient Greek Sapphic tradition, while creating an entirely modern poetry. Additionally influenced by her practice as a teacher, masseuse, and musician, she has created a poetry of the body and of ecstasy, celebration, and healing.

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ISBN: 9781556591266

Format: Paperback

Elegy

Somebody left the world last night, I felt it
so, last minute, last half-breath before the storm
that hit all night last night drew back. Midmorning
windows streaked with mud like sides of cars. How long

the journey? Sails, the windowpanes the black
thick tarp that kept the woodpile. Dry
Southern wind, in minutes clothes bone-hard, clamped
to the line. Clouds heaving in. The sky, the sky, who did arrive

to kiss the eye behind the windswept sheet? Who was it, solo
no longer, shy and desirous to be clean? What song
arose, what crust between the lids
spat and forgot? I woke, my fingers in my eyes

lifted and kissed
the yellow ash, so close.

About the Author

Olga Broumas was born in Syros, Greece, in 1949 and published her first book there in 1967. After moving to the United States, she received her BA in architecture from the University of Pennsylvania, and her MFA in creative writing from the University of Oregon. Her first book in English, Beginning with O, was selected by Stanley Kunitz for the Yale Younger Poets prize in 1977. Since then she has published seven volumes of solo and collaborative poetry (with T …

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Reviews

“A stunning collection… Whether Broumas raves with bliss or anger, she never lightens the lash of her intellect or dilutes her lyricism, compassion, or sense of the sacred.” —Booklist

“This collected volume by Broumas shows a poet of significant talent working at full force.” —Dictionary of Literary Biography Yearbook. 

“Broumas’s body of work to date… will stand as a unique and indelible contribution to American poetry.” —The Women’s Review of Books

“[Broumas’s] poems flow in easy, natural rhythms, allowing myriad details to fall together in harmonious company.” —Library Journal

“In the 20 years since [Broumas’s] groundbreaking Yale Prize book, Beginning With O, she has continued to achieve some of the highest states of poetic truth… Broumas has woven a universal lyric for all women. This is a major collection.” —Ray Gonzalez, The Bloomsbury Review

“…A poet of high lyricism, steeped in the Sapphic tradition… Broumas’s poems have never failed to be, in her own words, ‘nostalgic for salty idiom’.” —Christina Pugh, Boston Review

“…This collected volume by Broumas shows a poet of significant talent working at full force.” —Contemporary Literary Criticism

“Broumas is one of the great modernist, feminist, lesbian voices today… Her poetry is built on immediate signs of the secret and sacred, drawn from the world of visual and physical beauty… Rave is a work of great rigour [sic] and modernity, in the refined and sensitive voice and conscience of a major poet.” —Harvard Review

“Rave adds to the diverse fabric of strong ethnic lesbian literary voices and allows us to see the far-reaching impact of her work thus far.” —Jo-Ann Reid, The Lesbian Review

“Rave: Poems, 1975–1999 will stand as a unique and indelible contribution to American poetry… [Broumas’s] is a generous spirit, whose work is everywhere illumined by its rigorous communion with the world. We patiently await the fruit of the next thirty years.” —Adrian Oktenberg, Women’s Review of Books