The Gift That Arrives Broken
In her third book Jacqueline Berger surveys the terrain of mid-life, keeping her own youth clearly in view along with the decline of her aging parents. Her perceptions about the hungers of body and mind, striking in their candor, are couched in language that honors and deepens the losses, even as it uncovers the gifts to be found in brokenness...her steady gaze is keen and loving. --Chana BlochReading The Gift That Arrives Broken, I kept asking myself: what is the magic that makes these poems of a quiet, ordinary life, with small sensuous pleasures, and the tracking of a father's gradual decline toward death, so compelling? Is it the understated wisdom, the graceful compassion toward the self and others...Is it the precision of description, is it the amused memories of the self at sixteen, dropping acid and tearing up money, or the amused speculation about a girl with a baby at a crafts fair selling goddess magnets...This is an art that is centered everywhere. It brought me closer to my own center, and it will bring you, whoever you are, closer too. --Alicia Ostriker