Renaissance

Renaissance, Ruth Forman's second collection, speaks of the timeless themes of family, death, love, and rebirth in the inimitable voice Booklist called 'sexy, bittersweet, funny, feisty, and real.' With poetry that conveys a defiant, enlivened spirit and has won her acclaim, Ruth Forman measures the losses and celebrates the future of a generation.

Library Journal

Forman, who won the Barnard New Women Poets Prize and appeared in the PBS series The United States of Poetry, offers her second book of poems. Stunning and beautiful, they use incantatory language that heals; through references to writers of the Harlem Renaissance, the work builds a bridge for a new generation. These poems acknowledge some painful history, both personal and collective, but they lift us from that pain with lines like "You are a healer.../...you will bring it to people/ French thyme and apple mint cherry roots blackberry leaves star/ apple words." Among the issues addressed are birth, healing, racism, black literary heritage, and abuse. Poems like "Church Y'all" celebrate language and cultural roots with the message "nothing necessary but our tongue and what we remember." For most collections.Ann K. van Buren, New York Univ.

Ruth Forman is the 1992 grand prize winner of the Black History Month Marathon, sponsored by In the Company of Poets, and of the Barnard New Women Poets Prize, for her previous book, We Are the Young Magicians. Her work has also been featured in the PBS series The United States of Poetry, and published in book and CD form. She lives in Los Angeles.