The Darkened Temple (The Raz/Shumaker Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Poetry)

Longing itself is nothing but the heart s open spaces, writes Mari L Esperance. And in the open spaces at the heart of these poems is a mother who has disappeared. In a world of war and displacement, illness of the mind and body, imprisonment and violence both historical and personal, the poet leads her readers through a landscape of loss. In unadorned language, she draws readers into the interplay between articulation and silence and finally offers a vision of redemption.