From Library Journal
In blunt, unadorned language that could almost be prose, Peacock describes events not often the province of poetry: repeated abuse by an alcoholic father, for instance, or the aftermath of an abortion. Though struggling throughout to "surrender to the fact that I am," Peacock is in no mood for reconciliation with the world at large, a place "dry, shoddy/ and expensive below the sky, expansive" where "I am busy dividing: cut, cut." Undeniably powerful, her poems are yet not wholly satisfying because her very evident anger is not effectively integrated into a larger vision. As a result, her work can seem fragmented, built of tart but almost too-easy aphorism and experiences so white-hot in their immediacy that they cannot quite be seen. Still, though her work is not for everyone, the author of Raw Heaven ( LJ 1/85) is one of the more influential poets at work today.
- Barbara Hoffert, "Library Journal"
In blunt, unadorned language that could almost be prose, Peacock describes events not often the province of poetry: repeated abuse by an alcoholic father, for instance, or the aftermath of an abortion. Though struggling throughout to "surrender to the fact that I am," Peacock is in no mood for reconciliation with the world at large, a place "dry, shoddy/ and expensive below the sky, expansive" where "I am busy dividing: cut, cut." Undeniably powerful, her poems are yet not wholly satisfying because her very evident anger is not effectively integrated into a larger vision. As a result, her work can seem fragmented, built of tart but almost too-easy aphorism and experiences so white-hot in their immediacy that they cannot quite be seen. Still, though her work is not for everyone, the author of Raw Heaven ( LJ 1/85) is one of the more influential poets at work today.
- Barbara Hoffert, "Library Journal"
