UNDERTOW, poetry by Barbara Leff
Publication Date: November 15, 2024
Paperback, 94 pages
ISBN: 978-1-956782-84-4
“I’m on the other side / now, that slide down / to the next childhood / the one without fanfare.” No fanfare, perhaps, but in this new collection from Barbara Leff, this culmination of a life in poetry, she at least pays honor and homage to memory, and to loss, of all of the persons and pets and places and things that populated her life, especially a sister lost to suicide and all the friends lost to AIDS and other illness. And she confronts her own mortality, her “50/50” chance with cancer, admitting she is scared “of suffering, yes, of dying, no.” She asks for no obituary but instead “an adage or a poem” posted on a “on a public wall / like they did in the old country. // Just make it sturdy enough / to withstand winter / so passersby can look / and imagine.” We don’t have to imagine, because Leff has put everything into her verse, and left it as legacy. More than once here she employs the metaphor of relying on GPS for guidance. Her poetry serves that very real purpose, guiding us without fanfare to our common destination, arriving at serenity – “touch the raw / let language lead.”
Praise for Barbara Leff & Undertow
In Undertow, Barbara Leff demonstrates her strong poetic craft and mastery of confessional poetics with full force. For example, in her pantoum “My Shame,” the poet confronts the horrific death of her mother who was gushing blood from her mouth. Her mother’s doctor forced her out the room. Nonetheless, she berates herself for leaving her mother to die alone. Undertow is a searing collection of finely honed poetry.
—Karren LaLonde Alenier, editor, From the Belly: Poets Respond to Gertrude Stein’s Tender Buttons
The poems in Barbara Leff’s collection Undertow are full of memories and questions “…as I walk between rooms to recall why I’m here.” We move through known and unknown landscapes, both physical and emotional, as the speaker tries to place herself, sometimes through the use of an actual GPS, sometimes through remembrances. The poems are elegiac in tone, speaking to the grief of losing one’s parents, the death of friends from AIDS, and the tragic suicide of the speaker’s sister, all while dealing with her own cancer diagnosis. Leff writes with fierceness and honesty as she navigates her life. There is an openness to these poems, allowing us to enter the speaker’s world, to find common ground, as she says in her poem, Heaven, “But what do I know? We’re all searching for the same thing, after all.”
—Valerie Bacharach, author of Last Glimpse
In Barbara Leff’s poetry collection Undertow it feels as if there is a current that could pull the poet out to sea, yet ultimately she is a survivor who introduces us to the whimsy, joy, and tragedy that come from her deep relationships with family and friends. These deftly crafted poems treat the quotidian, the metaphysical, and the magical—“as if I could grab a handful of stars from the sky and toss them on the tiles at your feet.” Sharply observed, heartrending and celebratory by turns, Undertow conducts us through a lifetime of landscapes, its fascination with orientation in shifting memory and place becoming our own.
—Susan Cobin, author of What You Choose
An undertow can sweep a body and its soul away, act as a counterforce, suggest currents riding beneath the surface. Barbara Leff’s brave and beautiful poems in Undertow explore all three nuances of her metaphor. Haunted by her mother’s stroke, her sister Roberta’s unraveling, her father’s heartbreak and humor, the loss of her friend Peter to AIDS, her grandmother’s death, the poems also depict joy, an undertow sometimes coming in the poem’s turn. We hear the music of alliteration signaling themes: premonition, Prozac, “hoped for” pain, an astonishing suggestion of plunging down to heaven. The Orphean title poem both celebrates and mourns Peter, for even as kids “we stood our ground against the undertow.” Leff’s poems suggest how to remain upright while swept by that force, Orpheus’ way: by confronting death, even one’s own, with song, by loving beyond loss, by communing with animals, with tangible memories, humor—gallows or otherwise, the balm of nature, and by exploring troubles in order to know and understand. The poems offer a bonus too: moral clarity over error in poems like “Swastika,” “Venom,” “My Shame.”
—Charlene Fix, author of Jewgirl &Taking a Walk in My Animal Hat
About the Author
Barbara Leff discovered poetry at the age of 12 and has explored the genre ever since. A co-founder of the Caselli Street Poets, she has experimented with various forms, including the braided narrative and created a form she calls the crazy quilt, which is an unbraiding of the narratives allowing each stanza to inform the one before and resolving in the final stanza. Her work has appeared in various journals, including, Fourteen Hills, Faultline, and Ibbetson Press. She lives in San Francisco with her wife, Arlene Singer, and Baxter, our four-legged furry one. Her other books include And God Said . . . a Brief History of Creation from Broadstone Books, and Luck with visual artist, David Maxim.
Publication Date: November 15, 2024
Paperback, 94 pages
ISBN: 978-1-956782-84-4
“I’m on the other side / now, that slide down / to the next childhood / the one without fanfare.” No fanfare, perhaps, but in this new collection from Barbara Leff, this culmination of a life in poetry, she at least pays honor and homage to memory, and to loss, of all of the persons and pets and places and things that populated her life, especially a sister lost to suicide and all the friends lost to AIDS and other illness. And she confronts her own mortality, her “50/50” chance with cancer, admitting she is scared “of suffering, yes, of dying, no.” She asks for no obituary but instead “an adage or a poem” posted on a “on a public wall / like they did in the old country. // Just make it sturdy enough / to withstand winter / so passersby can look / and imagine.” We don’t have to imagine, because Leff has put everything into her verse, and left it as legacy. More than once here she employs the metaphor of relying on GPS for guidance. Her poetry serves that very real purpose, guiding us without fanfare to our common destination, arriving at serenity – “touch the raw / let language lead.”
Praise for Barbara Leff & Undertow
In Undertow, Barbara Leff demonstrates her strong poetic craft and mastery of confessional poetics with full force. For example, in her pantoum “My Shame,” the poet confronts the horrific death of her mother who was gushing blood from her mouth. Her mother’s doctor forced her out the room. Nonetheless, she berates herself for leaving her mother to die alone. Undertow is a searing collection of finely honed poetry.
—Karren LaLonde Alenier, editor, From the Belly: Poets Respond to Gertrude Stein’s Tender Buttons
The poems in Barbara Leff’s collection Undertow are full of memories and questions “…as I walk between rooms to recall why I’m here.” We move through known and unknown landscapes, both physical and emotional, as the speaker tries to place herself, sometimes through the use of an actual GPS, sometimes through remembrances. The poems are elegiac in tone, speaking to the grief of losing one’s parents, the death of friends from AIDS, and the tragic suicide of the speaker’s sister, all while dealing with her own cancer diagnosis. Leff writes with fierceness and honesty as she navigates her life. There is an openness to these poems, allowing us to enter the speaker’s world, to find common ground, as she says in her poem, Heaven, “But what do I know? We’re all searching for the same thing, after all.”
—Valerie Bacharach, author of Last Glimpse
In Barbara Leff’s poetry collection Undertow it feels as if there is a current that could pull the poet out to sea, yet ultimately she is a survivor who introduces us to the whimsy, joy, and tragedy that come from her deep relationships with family and friends. These deftly crafted poems treat the quotidian, the metaphysical, and the magical—“as if I could grab a handful of stars from the sky and toss them on the tiles at your feet.” Sharply observed, heartrending and celebratory by turns, Undertow conducts us through a lifetime of landscapes, its fascination with orientation in shifting memory and place becoming our own.
—Susan Cobin, author of What You Choose
An undertow can sweep a body and its soul away, act as a counterforce, suggest currents riding beneath the surface. Barbara Leff’s brave and beautiful poems in Undertow explore all three nuances of her metaphor. Haunted by her mother’s stroke, her sister Roberta’s unraveling, her father’s heartbreak and humor, the loss of her friend Peter to AIDS, her grandmother’s death, the poems also depict joy, an undertow sometimes coming in the poem’s turn. We hear the music of alliteration signaling themes: premonition, Prozac, “hoped for” pain, an astonishing suggestion of plunging down to heaven. The Orphean title poem both celebrates and mourns Peter, for even as kids “we stood our ground against the undertow.” Leff’s poems suggest how to remain upright while swept by that force, Orpheus’ way: by confronting death, even one’s own, with song, by loving beyond loss, by communing with animals, with tangible memories, humor—gallows or otherwise, the balm of nature, and by exploring troubles in order to know and understand. The poems offer a bonus too: moral clarity over error in poems like “Swastika,” “Venom,” “My Shame.”
—Charlene Fix, author of Jewgirl &Taking a Walk in My Animal Hat
About the Author
Barbara Leff discovered poetry at the age of 12 and has explored the genre ever since. A co-founder of the Caselli Street Poets, she has experimented with various forms, including the braided narrative and created a form she calls the crazy quilt, which is an unbraiding of the narratives allowing each stanza to inform the one before and resolving in the final stanza. Her work has appeared in various journals, including, Fourteen Hills, Faultline, and Ibbetson Press. She lives in San Francisco with her wife, Arlene Singer, and Baxter, our four-legged furry one. Her other books include And God Said . . . a Brief History of Creation from Broadstone Books, and Luck with visual artist, David Maxim.
Publication Date: November 15, 2024
Paperback, 94 pages
ISBN: 978-1-956782-84-4
“I’m on the other side / now, that slide down / to the next childhood / the one without fanfare.” No fanfare, perhaps, but in this new collection from Barbara Leff, this culmination of a life in poetry, she at least pays honor and homage to memory, and to loss, of all of the persons and pets and places and things that populated her life, especially a sister lost to suicide and all the friends lost to AIDS and other illness. And she confronts her own mortality, her “50/50” chance with cancer, admitting she is scared “of suffering, yes, of dying, no.” She asks for no obituary but instead “an adage or a poem” posted on a “on a public wall / like they did in the old country. // Just make it sturdy enough / to withstand winter / so passersby can look / and imagine.” We don’t have to imagine, because Leff has put everything into her verse, and left it as legacy. More than once here she employs the metaphor of relying on GPS for guidance. Her poetry serves that very real purpose, guiding us without fanfare to our common destination, arriving at serenity – “touch the raw / let language lead.”
Praise for Barbara Leff & Undertow
In Undertow, Barbara Leff demonstrates her strong poetic craft and mastery of confessional poetics with full force. For example, in her pantoum “My Shame,” the poet confronts the horrific death of her mother who was gushing blood from her mouth. Her mother’s doctor forced her out the room. Nonetheless, she berates herself for leaving her mother to die alone. Undertow is a searing collection of finely honed poetry.
—Karren LaLonde Alenier, editor, From the Belly: Poets Respond to Gertrude Stein’s Tender Buttons
The poems in Barbara Leff’s collection Undertow are full of memories and questions “…as I walk between rooms to recall why I’m here.” We move through known and unknown landscapes, both physical and emotional, as the speaker tries to place herself, sometimes through the use of an actual GPS, sometimes through remembrances. The poems are elegiac in tone, speaking to the grief of losing one’s parents, the death of friends from AIDS, and the tragic suicide of the speaker’s sister, all while dealing with her own cancer diagnosis. Leff writes with fierceness and honesty as she navigates her life. There is an openness to these poems, allowing us to enter the speaker’s world, to find common ground, as she says in her poem, Heaven, “But what do I know? We’re all searching for the same thing, after all.”
—Valerie Bacharach, author of Last Glimpse
In Barbara Leff’s poetry collection Undertow it feels as if there is a current that could pull the poet out to sea, yet ultimately she is a survivor who introduces us to the whimsy, joy, and tragedy that come from her deep relationships with family and friends. These deftly crafted poems treat the quotidian, the metaphysical, and the magical—“as if I could grab a handful of stars from the sky and toss them on the tiles at your feet.” Sharply observed, heartrending and celebratory by turns, Undertow conducts us through a lifetime of landscapes, its fascination with orientation in shifting memory and place becoming our own.
—Susan Cobin, author of What You Choose
An undertow can sweep a body and its soul away, act as a counterforce, suggest currents riding beneath the surface. Barbara Leff’s brave and beautiful poems in Undertow explore all three nuances of her metaphor. Haunted by her mother’s stroke, her sister Roberta’s unraveling, her father’s heartbreak and humor, the loss of her friend Peter to AIDS, her grandmother’s death, the poems also depict joy, an undertow sometimes coming in the poem’s turn. We hear the music of alliteration signaling themes: premonition, Prozac, “hoped for” pain, an astonishing suggestion of plunging down to heaven. The Orphean title poem both celebrates and mourns Peter, for even as kids “we stood our ground against the undertow.” Leff’s poems suggest how to remain upright while swept by that force, Orpheus’ way: by confronting death, even one’s own, with song, by loving beyond loss, by communing with animals, with tangible memories, humor—gallows or otherwise, the balm of nature, and by exploring troubles in order to know and understand. The poems offer a bonus too: moral clarity over error in poems like “Swastika,” “Venom,” “My Shame.”
—Charlene Fix, author of Jewgirl &Taking a Walk in My Animal Hat
About the Author
Barbara Leff discovered poetry at the age of 12 and has explored the genre ever since. A co-founder of the Caselli Street Poets, she has experimented with various forms, including the braided narrative and created a form she calls the crazy quilt, which is an unbraiding of the narratives allowing each stanza to inform the one before and resolving in the final stanza. Her work has appeared in various journals, including, Fourteen Hills, Faultline, and Ibbetson Press. She lives in San Francisco with her wife, Arlene Singer, and Baxter, our four-legged furry one. Her other books include And God Said . . . a Brief History of Creation from Broadstone Books, and Luck with visual artist, David Maxim.