Note to Self

Anastasia Vassos writes, "I stand at the brink of my life," and this collection embodies the intensity derived from a sense of lastness, when every moment matters. She revels in the ordinary and the extraordinary - from a highway drive with family through New Jersey, to visions of God that arise as she watches a grocery store worker stack pomegranates, and as she feels a smudge of candle soot on her finger. In truth, Note to Self is Vassos' letter to the world, a world made manifest line by line in these startling, radiant poems. -Jennifer Barber, author, The Sliding Boat Our Bodies MadeIn her new collection, Note to Self, Anastasia Vassos takes us on a hero's journey through lineage and love, icons and gods, memory and prayer. In her opening poem, "Made Manifest," Vassos writes: "I am not losing it, that sense / of where I'm going" - and she never does. She is a clear-eyed and observant guide to mortality and what is to come, celebrating language, life, and her own fascinating Greek heritage. Vassos' poems are inimitable, "a power / rising out of a shadow-cave to sunlight, renewal." Note to self: Read this collection again and again. -Kyle Potvin, author, LoosenIn Note to Self, her second collection, Anastasia Vassos continues to weave an exquisite and erudite conversation with the world and the human soul, and the result is magical. What a delight! These expansive poems are inseparable from their meditative and lyric engagement with the world, their hunger for the spiritual, and their sensual joy in the body as well as their awareness of loss. The stakes are always high. "Dear God, / When you see me eating in church / it's because I hunger." This is the hunger of a deeply observant heart. It is the hunger of both soul and body - it is love, and in the world of this book, all is sacred. Nourishing and vital, these poems offer an introspective and passionate radiance with each reading. -Suzanne Mercury, author, Hive

Pagina's: 98, Paperback, Kelsay Books