Book description
Sea Room is a navigational term meaning adequate space at sea in which
to maneuver a ship. The term seems an incongruity - that something so
open and deep should require such precise and careful charting. In these
most specific and powerful poems, the poet maps areas of obsessive love,
phobic illness, godlessness, the prism of sexuality and romantic
instinct in which all things are reflected, distorted.
There's a playful terror in Maria Flook's poems. Her animated word is
full of signs and signals; she always finds the telling analogue or
makes the figure which reveals, illuminated everyday perceptions.
"Dreams have cruel motives. Sleep worries/ both the decent and the
wicked/ who keep odd hours/ so I walked out."
The poems search for reprieve, or a calm, in wronged lives. Any
accusations are fully explored, recalled in forgiveness or apology for
relationships long over. "This poet has the power to see
unexpected resemblances - wonderfully unsettling mix of sexual
contamination and back-attic mustiness."--Alan Williamson, New York
Times Book Review MARIA FLOOK teaches at Warren Wilson College. She
has published two other books, Reckless Wedding(1982), her first book of
poems for which she received a Great Lakes Colleges Association New
Writer Award, and Dancing with My Sister Jane(1987) a book of short
stories. She has been a writing fellow at The Fine Arts Work Center in
Provincetown, and received an NEA fellowship in poetry writing.
