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by Ariana Reines (Author)
In The Rose, award-winning poet Ariana Reines navigates the intersection of power and surrender.
Drawing on the history of "romance" as the troubadours knew it and the titular flower's ancient allegories for sexuality and mystery, Reines plunges into feminine archetypes to explore masculine pain: "I have always liked helpless / & terrible men because they break my mind." In these poems, inherited ideologies of gender performance are replaced with bold vulnerability: paradoxes of power and surrender transmute the speaker's understanding of suffering, desire, and the soul.
The voice in The Rose is wry and bare, approaching the connection between erotic love and spirituality with humor. Investigating war, maternity, violent sensuality, and the role of language in magical acts, Reines is unafraid to uncover the "secret / & terrible shovelings / Of love," and the result is a bloody and pulsing, sexy and unabashed bloom.
Author Biography
Ariana Reines is an award-winning poet, playwright, and performing artist from Salem, Massachusetts. Her books include A Sand Book, winner of the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award. Her play Telephone won two Obies and has been performed internationally.
