Susan Blanshard Knihy

Luminous, reflective, confessional at times, with flashes of disclosure.

In Send The Raven , the very poems themselves are like messengers. Sent by the poet, they touch on the symbolist, metaphysical, soothsayer, and nostalgic-which may hold keys or passwords to the larger legend of life. As with previous works, epic book-length prose of Sheetstone, Honey In The Blood, ' and the poetry of Fragments Of The Human Heart, Quieter Histories Winter To Winter', and 'Poems From The Alley', Blanshard connects epochs of time with subtlety, elegance, imagination, emotional attitude, and notable sensuality. 'Send The Raven' is a continuum of the dialogue with past and present histories, what is inherited, possessed and dispossessed; what is remembered and what is known. A passionate conversation that exists at the center of her poetry.Here, acknowledgement of the human spirit is evident, not separable, from her writing. But finds shelter in the shift between techniques. Susan brings a variety of past worlds to life by reversing and elaborating traditional stanzas and bringing soothsaying echoes of historic form to light.

Susan Blanshard intended this collection to consist of a continuous period of writing, between two winters. Major events of this century, paradoxically, found poignant shelter in Blanshard's poetry.