Reviewed by Charles Rammelkamp

The Breath
BlazeVOX [books]
Oct 2021, $16.00, 78 pages, ISBN: 978-1-60964-380-5

Cindy Savett’s new collection of poetry revisits the subject of her first book, Child in the Road, published in 2007, also a response to the sudden death of her young daughter, Rachel.  The grief is still fresh, the mourning just as keen, the poetry just as lyrical. The collection contains five sections, all titled “Incantation” (#1, #2, #3, #4, #5) and each beginning with an incantation – a sort of magic spell. 

Savett’s incantations are strident and introduce recurrent images (clay, sparrow, dirt, twin). They function stylistically like the choral strophe and antistrophe of Ancient Greek tragedies, repeating phrases in a histrionic voice. As such, they deepen the tone of devastation and misfortune.

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