The Perfume of Pain

Just as perfume is the distilled essence of fragrant oils, the poems in this new collection by Suzanne Underwood Rhodes are products of a sensitive poet's capturing the essence of what it means to love, to lose, and to grieve. And just as perfume's fragrance lingers long after being dabbed on the wrists, Rhodes reminds us that the sharpness of loss lingers long after the death of a loved one. The remembrance comes in 'the pungence / of one crushed clove,' in 'the rough liturgy of a rooster crowing nearby,' and in cemetery tracks 'where a deer favored / [my husband's] grave on the way to somewhere' and is endured-as only those who mourn can truly know-in the secret sharing of support groups where grievers 'don't have to show our requisite faces, / those we wear in the crowd that expects, / needs us to be fine for their sake.' Like the ache in the superbly crafted 'Milk from the Moon' ('small' and 'raw'), the short, tightly compressed poems here reveal a poet brave in her vulnerability and unflinchingly honest in her emotions.

-Michael Blanchard, author of The Pearl Diver's Daughter



'It's always a pull between dirt and heaven, this boneyard life,' writes Suzanne Underwood Rhodes in one of these marvelous, affecting, withering, sharply etched poems. This is a book of grief and love in equal portions. There is a genuine appreciation of life here, in all its redolence and bright glares. And I found myself reading and rereading. Rhodes is the real deal, and The Perfume of Pain deserves a wide audience.



-Jay Parini, author of New and Collected Poems: 1975-2015



I opened Perfume of Pain from a place of darkness but came away with something richer than light. The poems exploring the loss of the poet's husband are among the most profoundly honest and beautiful words about grief I have read. "It's always a pull between dirt and heaven, this boneyard life," Rhodes writes. This collection will put you in the middle of that tug-of-war, where we are the most human.

-Tania Runyan, author of Second Sky and What Will Soon Take Place