Lyrical and highly charged these poems examine the strengths and frailties ofthe human psyche as it functions under the stress of loss disappointment andmortali... » 

Lyrical and highly charged these poems examine the strengths and frailties ofthe human psyche as it functions under the stress of loss disappointment andmortality. As the poet struggles with realitys continuing failure to satisfybasic human needs she develops a deepened reliance on the imagination as asource of restorative powers.I like Christine Garrens poetry for its fervor and idiosyncrasy. It lives inthe common places of daily life but opens into mysterious invisible orders.Afterworld is a strange and compelling book by a gifted visionary artist.W.S. Di PieroIn Afterworld Christine Garren calls up again and again how it feels to betouched by some relatively familiar thing that happens. A cluster of balloonsrises from a birthday party night falls and it is left for her to sing aboutthe separate moments with remarkable and unforced grace. Her poems confirm thattheres as much at stake in evanescences as weve always suspected but notfound ways to say.James McMichaelThe language seems but a shade a muted rendering of Garrens images soconcrete and ethereal knowing and innocent. If this reviewer is being abstractits because these poems do that to youthey create an arrangement of wordsso that for a while I believed there was none other.Harvard Review «