Odessa

This collection is "e;an astonishing achievement"e; that renders grief and illness in "e;supremely lyrical, brilliantly imagined . . . poetry of the highest order"e; (Connie Wanek).A grim prognosis, brain cancer, leaves the speaker in Kirkpatrick's Odessa fighting for her life. The tumor presses against her amygdalae, the "e;emotional core of the self,"e; and central to the process of memory.In poems endowed with this emotional charge but void of sentimentality, Kirkpatrick sets out to recreate what was lost by fashioning a dreamlike reality. Odessa, "e;roof of the underworld,"e; a refuge at once real and imagined, resembles simultaneously the Midwestern prairie and a mythical god-inhabited city. In image-packed lines bearing shades of Classical heroism, Kirkpatrick delivers a personal narrative of stunning dimension.Winner of the Lindquist & Vennum Prize for PoetryWinner of the Minnesota Book Award