Worldling

In this collection, Spires addresses the elemental subjects of life and literature: birth; death; creation; and intimations of immortality.

The Boston Globe writes that Elizabeth Spires's poetry is characterized by "simplicity, conviction and grace." These virtues are present in most of these poems, but are especially powerful in "Theatre of Pain," Spires's account of giving birth to her daughter. She writes: "In the theatre of pain where all things are born / and brought into the light, / I found myself one night, the world contracting / to a dream of world ..." A paradox: Spires captures, with a realistic quality, the dreamy and unreal feeling that can pervade life's most intense moments. (It's not for nothing that she's been compared to Elizabeth Bishop!) From the microcosm of birth to the larger world, Elizabeth Spires's writing is hypnotic and passionate.