Blood, Metal, Fiber, Rock

If you are one who seeks from poetry the comfort of companionship with someone else who looks for peace and sees none but looks again, who says "old as I am and still without answers," who speaks in language sacred and elemental as Blood, Metal, Fiber, Rock; poems, whose poems are like prayer, immune to the fashions of the day, like those you loved, when young-poetry with rhyme, written to be read aloud and had by heart, full of foreboding but also "full of forgiveness, and the scent of blood orange." If so, then, with Elizabeth Bodien, ..".take a deep breath, say yes, step in." -Eleanor Wilner Elizabeth Bodien's Blood, Metal, Fiber, Rock transports the reader to a world where "the moon is full, the deep road is calling," where "the light has enveloped her, / taken her in / to its delicate story," and "earth pulls all else down to it," always reminding us, "My task's to bear the beauty." Bodien's poetry is mythic and lyrical, mournful, playful, and plaintive. She writes with striking authority and originality. -Ernest Hilbert, author of Caligulan As I read through this sweeping panorama of the human condition expressed through various voices, I am overwhelmed by the talent. I was struck by the musicality of the lines, the metric schemes, and the use of both form and narrative structures, also the rich images and complexities of thought which make Blood, Metal, Fiber, Rock by an immensely skilled poet an exciting read. One of my favorite form poems, "Blue Boy," is a fine example of why you should read Bodien's poems aloud. "Blue boy sits like stone beside the water / sinking into reverie, discovering / new joy there at dawn by water's sparkle, / twinkling, twinkling as if stars had fallen...." -Nancy Scott, author of Ah, Men and Running Down Broken Cement