Body of My Garden, The

In The Body of My Garden, Rishma Dunlop takes a voyage around the heart in poems that embody the burdens and exhilaration of love. Whether recreating the paradise gardens of Moghul India, or writing an erotically charged poetry of absent lovers, Dunlop uses language in a painterly way, creating sensory images that shimmer with light and humanity while probing the darkness of a sometimes paradoxical and violent world. Ultimately this romantic collection of poems is about seeking grace in the eros and desires of everyday life.

“Grieving, celebratory, these are sensuous songs for the world’s body and for our own easily broken bodies. With care she extracts the words of a lover’s yearning. Above all, most movingly, most finely, she sets those of a mother aching for the lives of those jeopardized by the cruelties and accidents that would claim them. Lines that startle and please so much you might, like me write them down, think of committing them to memory, wishing they were your own.” (Dennis Cooley)