Lives

2021 Winner of the Kathryn A. Morton Prize in Poetry

"CJ Evans's beautiful book, Lives, explores and circles around, into and out of what it means to be free and alive in a world where humans insist on war and environmental destruction. . . . The book is intimate, expansive, and in moments, willfully hopeful. As Evans writes: 'here is a price I've exacted/to live, a shadow in which nothing else could grow, /but since I'm here I'd love.'"
--Victoria Chang, winner of the PEN Voelcker Award for OBIT

Here are poems with music matched to matter, so that reading them often involves both swoon and startle: "When it folds open, the rule-less rile / of sky," Evans, writes, "the comets and giants. And also: / books, chamomile, and more kissing." Panoramic in time and space, Lives knows each of us, our ordinary lives and our occupancy within history and the universe, our yearning for connection: "And if I turned to you now, my one wet muscle run dry, would you / turn to me? And what else could my heart be for if not to try?"

Author: Cj Evans
Publisher: Sarabande Books
Published: 06/14/2022
Pages: 80
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.35lbs
Size: 8.70h x 5.80w x 0.50d
ISBN: 9781946448965

Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 05/16/2022