Breaks and Interruptions, by Carol Durak

Poetry, chapbook, 28 pages, from Bottlecap Features. Durak’s desire to be heard, by the living and the dead, and the turmoil of saying what needs to be said, motivates this collection of gems. Through each poem Durak threads the sorrow-song, making a necklace of endings and eternities. Sometimes dark, sometimes indigo, always relentless, whether psalm, dirge, sonnet, blues, free verse or prose, the collection could be subtitled, Lamentations. The author approaches the mystery of lamentation because she must. “Between / visionary words and death-vision, / I’ll get to that / blank page. Saying, dark and ransacked, / I’ll get to that blank page in the night.” Carol Durak, originally from Michigan, lived for many years in Maine. In addition to writing, she owned a hand book binding business and worked in book conservation at the Bowdoin College Library. In 2019, she left the East Coast and lives in northern New Mexico. Her poems have appeared in Antioch Review, Cimmaron Review, Laurel Review, MOIRA, New Letters, Permafrost, Rue Scribe, and other journals. Her chapbook, Hymn Postponement, was published in Three Chapbooks / Three Poets (Flowstone Press, 2024.)