The Identification of Ghosts

“Maryrose Larkin’s surprising and rangy poem is part exorcism, part tour of the ruthless canals of the body where memories like ghosts hover, retreat, get startled and go astray. Decay and loss are present, but as movement, animation. Even the process of revision is palpably felt, not as groping for excellence but as openness to re-vision. Where some poets simply evoke contingency, Maryrose enacts it, and with a powerful sense of compassion. The ghosts here lead not to an underworld or to what may come, but to ‘touch and hazard.’ The effect is both haunting and inviting. Go in and meet everything outside, anew.”—Standard Schaefer