Starred review from March 1, 2020
Bass (Like a Beggar, 2014), recipient of three Pushcart Prizes and a Lambda Literary Award, presents a bold and passionate new collection assessing the human experience. She exalts, as in "Wilderness," an erotic and compassionate poem: Give me / eighteen sinuous arms like Avalokiteshvara / so I can hold you through every terror. Bass' dexterity and diversity of inspirations stand out in "Photograph: Jews Probably Arriving to the Lodz Ghetto, circa 1941-1942." Here the reader is reminded that history is happening without end as the present witnesses the past: they will be led into the ghetto / and then will be led out to the camps, / but for now, the eternal now, / the light is silent. "Indigo," the title poem, is at once radiantly introspective and universal as the speaker considers what could have been, what was, what might be, and how our lives are a series of choices. Bass concludes with "Any Common Desolation," which revisits her central theme, the miracle of being: You may have to break / your heart, but it isn't nothing / to know even one moment alive. Intimacy is rarely conveyed as gracefully as in Bass' lustrous poems.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)