Darkling
by Anna Rabinowitz

In this stunning follow-up to her prizewinning debut collection (At the Site of Inside Out), Anna Rabinowitz has created a braided and woven language from the turbulence of multiple voices in the act of finding themselves.

Darkling is a book-length acrostic sequence a poem of accretion, of fragmented self and culture. Seeking its own process and form, it assembles narrative by way of antiphony, counterpoint, meditation, chant, repetition and epistle.

How does a contemporary poet speak in the aftermath of the Holocaust? Is it possible to evoke, perhaps even reactualize, through language, rhythms, and imagery, intimations of the past when factual details are largely lost? Can new constructs of language be generated within the constraints of a received form?

Anna Rabinowitz unflinchingly takes on these questions as she looks back on the ruptured history of the 20th century. Drawing on literary roots Thomas Hardy's The Darkling Thrush and the ancient acrostic form she has shaped an utterly original, deeply personal work which is both armature and repository for an emotionally charged language called upon to articulate that which cannot be fully spoken.

With Darkling, Anna Rabinowitz brilliantly demonstrates that one can, indeed, write poetry after the Holocaust.

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"This dense, unsettling volume makes a unique contribution to Holocaust literature." says Publishers Weekly in a short but powerful review.

John Freeman, president of the National Book Critics Circle, reviews the poetic opera based on Darkling for the Poetry Foundation.

Time Out New York Associate Music Editor Steve Smith reflects on Darkling in his February 27, 2006 blog entry.