The Border Surrounds Us
McClelland and Stewart, 2001
90 pages
“The hardest frontiers to cross / are the ones inside our skin.” In her direct address of the political from the realm of personal experience, Karen Connelly has been compared to both Carolyn Forche and Pablo Neruda. The most moving pieces in this book--and some of this writer’s strongest poems to date--are hymns to Burma (now called Myanmar) and to the Burmese people in their struggle for democracy and human rights.
Moving among the haunted refugees and political dissidents on the Thai-Burma border, retelling the stories of Greek peasants, negotiating the borders between home and exile, Karen Connelly brings fierce passion to even her quietest poems, and a sense of engagement with the world as both participant and witness. Ranging from richly metaphorical and sensual to sharp and spare, this work explores external as well as internal borders--“the blurred but authentic lines / between what we are and what we must become.”
REVIEWS
“Her new work testifies more clearly than ever to a fierce desire for rebirth or transformation, a reckless longing to break free, to cross over, to take every risk even if it means finding oneself “disfigured, pounded,/tempered among ashes.” Such fascinations breed fear, joy, and a loneliness relieved by occasional meetings with kindred spirits also “born to the tribe/of terrible longings.” These are themes Connelly has made her own.”
- Quill and Quire
“[Connelly] leads us through the stories of Greek peasants; of refugees and guerrilla soldiers on the Thai-Burmese border; of Burmese jade pit workers who are paid in heroin and driven into horror; of dead babies and child prostitutes, each ripped from themselves and their country by the roots.
All of the poems in this collection are succinct and easy to read. They move fluidly from subject to subject with a grace that defies both spoken word and prose. The rich metaphoric world of her previous collections is still present, but her evocative use of shorter, crisp lines has opened up a completely new dimension to her work that produces a multitude of experiences in each reading.”
- Life On The Border Review, Mark Molnar