Erin Rodoni
Winner of the聽2020 Michael Waters Poetry Prize
On the brink of climate catastrophe, a mother grappling with her choice to bring children into聽an apocalyptic world sends her daughters into the woods of fairy tale as a rite of initiation. The聽woods carry her fears of extinction鈥� devastating fires, rising seas, and the predatory dangers of聽girlhood鈥攂ut also contain the transformative magic of love, interdependence, and renewal. And If聽the Woods Carry You roots into the wild heart of motherhood, where worry and wonder intertwine.
鈥淭hick with the intrinsic music of the woods, Erin Rodoni鈥檚 And If the Woods聽Carry You offers us a lyrical journey through a world 鈥榟eavy with ghosts and聽dead bees,鈥� enchantment, and grit. With language that is both tender and聽incisive, Rodoni gives voice to the wonder and uncertainty of childhood and聽motherhood, illuminating a land of illness and loss, but also of 鈥榚veryday magic鈥櫬燼nd exquisite beauty.鈥�
-Vandana Khanna
鈥淟ike all great fairy tales, Erin Rodoni鈥檚 poems are a glorious marriage of the聽domestic and the dangerous. There are tests and transformations, solitudes聽and sacrifices, births and burials. Everything is changing into something else,聽something energized, erotic, and enchanted. But it is the poet鈥檚 attention to craft聽that lifts these poems from the beguiling world of mere narrative into the more聽magical realm of art. In language that feels both ancient and current, Rodoni聽manages to craft lyrics that seem to come from some other world while speaking聽truths to this one. This is a marvelous book with a poetic voice to enliven even聽the wildest woods.鈥�
-Dean Rader
鈥溾�極h, it is dangerous / to love a child,鈥� writes Erin Rodoni as both lamentation and聽warning in this book of woods and gardens less bucolic than roiled with the underlying darkness of fairy tales. Her journeying through such sensuous landscapes uncovers聽implicit desires for herself and her daughters, as well as explicit desire for her craft: 鈥業 want the poem to hold everything the way my body holds / the whole and holy of聽me.鈥� If these poems, their 鈥榲ision exquisite / with detail,鈥� bring to mind Donatello鈥檚 wooden sculpture of Mary Magdalene, that striking embodiment of suffering, they also聽insist that healing is another constant in our lives and remind us that 鈥榃hatever we mother, it is tenderly / vicious, this language we speak.鈥欌��
-Michael Waters