HOPE by Lovely Raju

“Lilacs down, though spirits up.” Lovely Raju’s debut collection IS Hope. Fractured and tear-soaked—like the roots and branches of Blake’s famed “Poison Tree,” these startling poems are soaked in sun and moon, anger and hurt. Through languages of light and eerie wilderness, this daring poet’s painterly Hope weaves “strange gusts” into “off-white” clouds of “oceanic salt” and “seagull’s feathers.” Of the surrealist tradition yet anything but traditional, these fearless poems are not the sky, but the lightning that tears through. The voice that remains. Yes, Hope is lightning itself and it is what swells and pulses in the heart of this collection. Lynn Margulis once asked ‘What is life?’ Lovely Raju’s Hope might be the answer.”

–Paul Cunningham, author of Fall Garment

“You cannot kick me out of the blue horizon.” Lovely Raju‘s Hope has the buoyancy of a green branch springing into place, reminding even the most jaded reader that poetry can be a lithe shunt for moving us from enclosure to bliss.

–Joyelle McSweeney, author of Toxicon and Arachne