The shape of this book and many of the poems within its pages mimic the expanding spiral of Cape Cod, where Braverman lives. This peninsular shoreline setting informs her poetry that is unselfconsciously about the search for love and security in the face of grief and within the queer community. Written with raw energy and astonishing images, Red showcases Braverman’s acute sensitivity to her atmosphere, both natural and peopled, and is evidence of a gifted, powerful voice.
If the heron comes in low over the marshes, if it shadows the car as you drive
west toward the sea, breakwater holding the lip of the coming tide
at bay while the autumn sun cast one gold and pink sheen over the grasses
like a spell, like all the secrets you tell
yourself while driving; if the heron comes in low, great wings beating the air
slowly as a woman beats rugs on a line, having pulled them from the basement
readying the house for winter (it is a fine, warm day but she is not fooled,
having lived her whole life here she knows what’s just beyond the cusp
of October); if you stop the car and, getting out, watch the bird hover and dip
and disappear below the horizon of the tall grass, wait then, just wait:
before the sky loses its light for good, and your hands grow unusually chill
in the new air, the head of the heron will bob like a buoy back out of the grass
again, as if it had always been there, still as a road sign, and there
it will remain, unfazed, patient and voracious
in this splendid world.
Listen to “Red,” read by Melanie Braverman:
Winner of the Publishing Triangle Audre Lorde Poetry Prize
Finalist for a Lambda Literary Award