Description
Lynn Powell’s earlier work has deservedly brought her prestigious prizes and a loyal following. Now, in The Zones of Paradise, Powell extends her range and raises her language to a new intensity. These poems travel from Australia to New Mexico, from the Garden of Eden to her own back yard in Ohio, and everywhere they tremble with the restless exploration of desire, thwarted or fulfilled: my heart another / Magellan of memory and want. The Zones of Paradise may offer a vision of what it is like to live in the fallout of The Fall, but Powell’s lines dazzle with their sensuous intelligence and vivid wit, introducing an undaunted Eve who can announce, I want to take April as my personal savior. In poems that embrace both the risks and pleasures of experience, Lynn Powell celebrates the only world we know.
There is an exuberant playfulness in these poems, a romp of observation, vivid and startling. In Powell’s world everything is alive and connected, rich in reference, yet spoken with ease, as words open up hidden worlds. She soars and pauses, in the erotic errata, the vocal colors, of discovery, of the struggle to love, in poems exact and moving, down to the quick stabs of the final lines. Lynn Powell is one of our finest poets, and this is her best work yet.
—Robert Morgan
