How I Got Lost So Close to Home
Amy Dryansky
"Amy Dryansky's poems open the moment of experience for fresh
possibilities of understanding. By this, I mean the impact of her language, her vision,
and her quest bring us to the point of moving beyond the poems. We are given more in this
book than in most collections because the poet has not held anything back. We find
ourselves on the other side of the book--that place any poet and her reader wishes to
be."
—Ray Gonzalez
"Amy Dryansky puts her faith in what
Zbigniew Herbert once called the art of 'uncertain clarity.' Which is to say, she makes
doubt her friend. She uses doubt—instead of being used by it—and gets it to do
some wonderfully bright things in the dark. I mean bright as in smart: humor in the face
of suffering, compassion without sentimentality, and that ache at the center of
life—those are her specialties. These poems have their wits about them at all times,
side by side with an honesty enviable for its calm and exactness."
—David Rivard
"How I Got Lost So Close to Home
is a joyous collection of poems written by a woman whose best gifts include accuracy and
risk. I love the free-fall of this book, its vivid, spirited language, its truths. If
poetry is a high wire act, Dryansky awes her audience. And it is in her willingness to try
new feats—without a net—that she startles us with her sweep and balance, her
poise in the face of the uncertain, and her nerve."
—Deborah Digges
about the author
Amy Dryansky's poems have appeared in many journals, including The New England Review, DoubleTake, The Massachusetts Review, and Nerve. Her poems are also included in several anthologies, including Sweeping
Beauty: Contemporary Women Poets Do Housework (University of Iowa Press). Her first book of poems, How I Got Lost So Close To Home, won the New England/New York award from Alice James Books. She has been nominated for two Pushcart Prizes and awarded fellowships to the MacDowell Colony, Vermont Studio Center, Villa Montalvo and the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference. Most recently, she was awarded a fellowship from the Five College Women's Studies Research Center at Mt. Holyoke College to look at the impact of motherhood on the work of women poets.
She's just finished her second manuscript, The Art of Refusal, and is at work on an anthology. She lives in Conway, MA with her husband and two children, leads writing workshops in the community, and is a consultant and grant writer for arts organizations.
Author photo by Robin Todd
two poems from how i got lost so close to home
review of how i got lost so close to home from kingdom books
