The White Room

Cynthia Pitman's The White Room is full of mystery and insight. Its pages explore loss and absence, but also a paradoxical fruitfulness. Many poems are, in fact, colour-rich-the verdant, bloody hues of nature, the refracted wisdom of history, myth, and the self. "I will chisel the walls / from the air that I breathe," she declares in the title poem. The poetic "I" in these pages is both piercingly personal and generously imaginative. Pitman's accessible but finely-tuned language embraces poetry's power to challenge-like the moon, "nowhere is there a sphere more dangerous"-and in doing so, it also revisits, cherishes, and heals.-Sarah Law, Editor, Amethyst ReviewCynthia Pitman's poetry is sharp and darkly delicious. Her lines are quick and rich, with deep tones that echo hues of nature's cruelty, but also the succinct, spiritual beauty we catch in a cold wind or a dark, tropical monsoon. The quiet ice in every word of her work leads the reader into an elegant dance within the shadows of death, and all without fear, with an eye instead toward the beauty of each silent aftermath.-Earl Wynn, Editor, Leaves of InkCynthia Pitman's The White Room is a magnetic collection of poetry that's deeply occupied with the inevitable. From start to finish, Pitman's poetry speaks of beauty, youth, and calm in the same breath as ugliness, death, and chaos. She writes of shelter and comfort but also vulnerability and aching, loss, longing, and possession and contentment. The calm of day is threatened by a coming storm. The innocence of youth is sullied by the fatalism of the aging mind. The inventions of humankind are leveled by the elements. The White Room brings to light the interruptions that invariably beset our lives, but also the fortifying power of facing them with grace.-Brian Geiger, Editor, Vita Brevis