Rehearsal

In her poignant new collection, Rehearsal, poet Irene Willis gifts us with a remarkable discovery--that to embrace the truths of dying is to celebrate life. In clear precise language, Willis enables us to share the couple's deep love shining through details of their days, to know that no matter one's age, the moment of death surprises. The book's second section deals with the after time, as in the remarkable poem titled "Hers" when "she started to own her own life"--that the loneliness of widowhood brings with it the strengths of independence. Blended in are poems of vivid childhood experience, her mother's aging time, exchanges with other poets. To read these poems by Irene Willis is to have one's own life enriched by her clarity of vision, her voice of wisdom and courage.

--Charlotte Mandel, author of To Be The Daylight



Each passing year of life, each new wrinkle of the skin, each hesitation of limbs and, above all, each loss of a loved one, is a preparation for what awaits us at the end of our lives' journeys. Nonetheless, the sojourn brings us glimpse of great joy, pride, musing, thrill, the pleasure of efficacy, lust, and yes, also sadness, defeat, shame, regret and remorse. Irene Willis offers us lexical snapshots taken along this bittersweet highway and does so with great eloquence and dignity.

Salman Akhtar Author of Freshness of the Child (2018)