The Shipwreck Dress
Poems by Terri Witek
As Witek sensuously explores the most ancient connections between text and textile, she turns her poems into stunning, subtle word-kimonos. Vivid with color, deeply sensuous, and sharply intelligent, The Shipwreck Dress shows Terri Witek at the height of her powers.
—Molly Peacock
“Which is the key to the hotel of dismay?” As richly silken-layered as the kimonos on whose evocations she rings such ingenious changes, Terri Witek’s poems offer mystery enfolded in mystery, “like” (as she writes) “a bottle of river water / corked and floating in the same river / but already tipping ahead to shadowy shoals.” In these urgent, hermetic, elegant poems, everything connects. Yet patiently follow the thread of any one precisely rendered detail, and you’ll arrive at a microcosmic narrative and risk losing yourself in one of the innumerable imaginative sub-worlds of this unique poet.
—Rachel Hadas