E-Verse Radio

Tupelo Press Announces a Sarah Hannah Memorial and Reading

by Ernie on 26/09/07 at 9:16 am

Tupelo Press announces a Sarah Hannah Memorial and Reading. “Please join us October 25th from 7-9PM for a memorial for Sarah Hannah (1966-2007) including readings from the new book Inflorescence by poets and friends at Poet’s House, 72 Spring Street, second floor, New York, NY 10012.All are welcome and encouraged to attend. For information about participating in the reading, please email: publisher@tupelopress.org.”

Eva Salzman, a London-based critic, is preparing article on Sarah Hannah’s two books, Longing Distance and (just out) Inflorescence, for the Contemporary Poetry Review. Ms. Salzman has written: “We’re profoundly saddened to report that one of our own, the poet Sarah Hannah, has died tragically, and tragically young. She grew up in Waban, Massachusetts, the daughter of two painters, Renee Rothbein and Nathan Goldstein. Having received her B.A. from Wesleyan University and Ph.D from Columbia University, she latterly taught at Emerson College in Boston. Her first book Longing Distance (Tupleo) received widespread acclaim from leading poets such as A.E. Stallings, Linda Gregerson, and many others. The cover of her second—and last—book, Inflorescence, which is due out fall 2007, features a painting by her mother. A talented writer, she was the kind of person who called it as she saw it, often in ways not everyone wanted to hear, which is often the way of extraordinary people. Funny, warm, cynical and lyrical, she was both fragile and powerful, a combination of such extremes in equal measure. The loss to the literary world is great. The personal loss to family, friends and her devoted students is unspeakable. When not engaged in highbrow literature, Sarah Hannah played guitar in a heavy metal band, and was proud to have been once kissed by three out of the four Monkees. Ah well, nobody’s perfect. Nobody could have been loved or valued more. She should have been read more when alive.”

The Garden As She Left It
Sarah Hannah

Locked, strung
With pollens, stirred by bees.
The cicadas burn

Their fine blue current.
At the center, two paths cross:
A ring of impatiens.

Their white petals lift to the air.
Are they waiting for the next departure—

Scrub jay, sulfur moth, the summer?

The paths lead outward
To a brick border,
A perfect circle squared.

On the gray wall of the house
A thin broom slants,
The air around it furious.

The dim figure of the woman,
The recent flutter of hands.

Ernie

Ernest Hilbert is founder of E-Verse Radio.

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