All Violet

In All Violet, a young woman chronicles the experience of living on the margins, in spaces and places where body and mind are flayed by guilt, disappointments and betrayals. Her poems record the shattering trauma of struggling to survive through periods of doubt, fear, rage and pain, creating a narrative of disconnection, indignation, alienation and emptiness, the extremes of suffering and desperation.

Employing lyrical free verse, Rani Rivera has skillfully employed the short line to pinpoint moments of acute perception.

Unadorned, taut and precise cries of pain, loss and fury draw the reader deeper and deeper inside this in-your-face confrontation with a dark world of foreboding alleviated by flashes of mordant wit and grace under fire.

“A star student and sweet friend, Rani’s death hurts in a way only she could describe with beauty and grace: ‘I love them pretty/with their ugliness./I love them all violet/and blue.’

Her love for the world courses through this powerful collection like a clean, clear river, bathing and purifying the poison and the pain she delineates with a razor, her uncanny mind.

New to these poems, I wish her back to praise her, and instead, say goodbye again, knowing she has left behind a stunning legacy, one that will be returned to, again and again, by anyone who knows, to quote Theodore Roethke, ‘the purity of pure despair.’

And to anyone who knows that life is wreching and sublime, all at once: All night, she turned violet and blue, betrayed by the Earth’s roll into darkness, leaving behind fields of flowers, bigger than oceans, and kindness, and love.”

—Lynn Crosbie, writer, professor and author of The Corpses of the Future

In All Violet, o tanara relateaza experienta de a trai la margine, in spatii si locuri in care corpul si mintea sunt jefuite de vinovatie, dezamagiri si tradari. Poeziile ei inregistreaza trauma zdrobitoare a luptei pentru a supravietui prin perioade de indoiala, frica, furie si durere, creand o naratiune de deconectare, indignare, instrainare si vid, extremele suferintei si disperarii. Angajand versuri libere libere, Rani Rivera a folosit cu pricepere linia scurta pentru a identifica momentele de perceptie acuta. Strigatele de durere, pierderi si furie neinfrumusetate, precise si atrag cititorul din ce in ce mai adanc in aceasta confruntare in fata ta cu o lume intunecata a presimtirii atenuate de sclipiri de inteligenta si gratie mordanta „Un student vedeta si prieten dulce, moartea lui Rani doare intr-un mod pe care numai ea ar putea sa-l descrie cu frumusete si gratie:„ Ii iubesc draguti / cu uratenia lor. / Ii iubesc pe toti violet / si albastru. ”Dragostea ei pentru lumea trece prin aceasta colectie puternica ca un rau curat si limpede, scaldand si purificand otrava si durerea pe care le delimiteaza cu un aparat de ras, cu mintea ei ciudata. Nou la aceste poezii, ii doresc inapoi sa o laude si, in schimb, , spune la revedere din nou, stiind ca a lasat in urma o mostenire uimitoare, una care va fi returnata, din nou si din nou, de oricine stie, pentru a-l cita pe Theodore Roethke, „puritatea deznadejdii pure”. Si pentru oricine care cunoaste acea viata este zgarcit si sublim, deodata: toata noaptea, s-a transformat in violet si albastru, tradata de rolul Pamantului in intuneric, lasand in urma campuri de flori, mai mari decat oceanele, si bunatatea si dragostea. ”- Lynn Crosbie, scriitor, profesor si autorul Corpurilor viitorului