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With Nothing
Behind but Sky
Poems in Perie Longo's book, With Nothing behind but Sky: a journey through grief, cover a nine year period from the diagnosis of her husband’s leukemia, through his treatment, death and beyond showing how time changes grief, and how the relationship of a husband and wife continues even after death, always there like the sky, which offers hope even when life seems darkest. Perie Longo’s poems transport us across the spectrum of emotion: tragic and cathartic to funny and hopeful. She is a virtuoso in each form she chooses, carrying us with her, laughing and crying
The strength it takes to immortalize the passage of a relationship in this way, why, it’s remarkable. Caught in a painful vise of illness, Perie Longo manages to persevere, and oh, how we come to admire this strong and loving woman.
REVIEW 12-07-06 Santa Barbara Independent The Poets of Artamo Press (excerpt) by Barry Spacks Perie Longo’s book, With Nothing behind but Sky, a journey through grief, presents memoir poems recording the terminal illness of her adventurous husband and the aftermath of his death. If this sounds like a downer, you don’t know Perie Longo, a writer blessed with ingenuity, craft, rich humor, and penetrating honesty. One of her poem’s titles alone hints at the life-energy animating this survivor’s tale: “The Widow Discovers Her Tires Are Bald when the ‘Check Engine’ Light Comes On.” Poems of wit, poignancy, and strength allow us to explore the country of grief and ultimate healing. Take, as a small sample, the ending lines of the title poem, where the widow‘s son releases his father's ashes from "the fist of the mountain” under which the father had spent his is youth: the one our son mounted to send you forth and when he did a whirlwind bloomed from the ashes, circled him with a roar and crescendo, then disappeared. But we know where you are. We do. Longo’s book is a triumph of language, spirit, life-force, and healing.
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BUY
FROM ARTAMO PRESS