false 2152670 1 <div>With her strong voice and precise language, Meena Alexander has crafted this visceral, worldly collection of poems. The experience she brings to the reader is sensual in many senses of the word, as she invokes bright colors, sounds, smells, and feelings. Her use of vivid imagery from the natural world&#8212;birds, lilies, horses&#8212;up against that from the world of humans&#8212;oppression, slavery, and violence&#8212;ties her work to the earth even as she works a few mystical poetic transformations.<br><br> <br><br>In Alexander&#8217;s world, the songs of a bird can become the voice of a girl in a café and the red juice of mulberries can be as shocking as blood. When she focuses her attention on the cloth of a girl&#8217;s sari, the material of a woman&#8217;s life, or the blood in her veins, she speaks to the particular experience of women in the world. The women are vividly present&#8212;sometimes they are hidden or veiled, juxtaposed with open gardens in full bloom. It is difficult not to come away from <i>Quickly</i><i> Changing River</i> without a new sense of the power and frailty of being alive.<br><br> <br><br><div><div><b>Aletheia (Girl in River Water)</b> </div><div> </div><div><i>First I saw your face,</i></div><div><i>The your whole body lying still </i></div><div><i>Hands jutting, eyelids shut </i></div><div><i></i> </div><div><i>Twin nostrils flare, sheer</i></div><div><i>Efflorescebce when memory cannot speak-</i></div><div><i>a horde of body parts glistening. </i></div></div></div> 2158169 9 1 2008 Quickly Changing River: Poems (Triquarterly) total:3|4:3| 3 12 9 0 2152670 0810124513 9780810124516 3 0 4.00 http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2152670.Quickly_Changing_River_Poems 0 0 false Mon Nov 02 07:36:44 -0800 2009 Mon Nov 02 07:36:47 -0800 2009 2152670 0810124513 9780810124516 3 0 4.00 http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2152670.Quickly_Changing_River_Poems 0 0 false Mon Aug 03 23:24:39 -0700 2009 Mon Aug 03 23:24:39 -0700 2009 2152670 0810124513 9780810124516 3 0 4.00 http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2152670.Quickly_Changing_River_Poems 0 0 false Tue Jul 21 07:19:01 -0700 2009 Tue Jul 21 07:19:01 -0700 2009 2152670 0810124513 9780810124516 3 0 4.00 http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2152670.Quickly_Changing_River_Poems 4 0 false Mon Jul 20 18:06:47 -0700 2009 Mon Jul 20 18:06:54 -0700 2009 2152670 0810124513 9780810124516 3 0 4.00 http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2152670.Quickly_Changing_River_Poems 0 0 false Sun Nov 16 10:40:09 -0800 2008 Sun Nov 16 10:40:09 -0800 2008 2152670 0810124513 9780810124516 3 0 4.00 http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2152670.Quickly_Changing_River_Poems 0 0 false Wed Aug 20 15:24:40 -0700 2008 Wed Aug 20 15:24:40 -0700 2008 2152670 0810124513 9780810124516 3 0 4.00 http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2152670.Quickly_Changing_River_Poems 4 0 false Mon Aug 18 14:10:37 -0700 2008 Mon Aug 18 14:10:37 -0700 2008 2152670 0810124513 9780810124516 3 0 4.00 http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2152670.Quickly_Changing_River_Poems 4 0 false Mon Mar 24 12:19:40 -0700 2008 Tue Mar 03 09:26:03 -0800 2009 2152670 0810124513 9780810124516 3 0 4.00 http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2152670.Quickly_Changing_River_Poems 0 0 false Wed Feb 20 19:54:25 -0800 2008 Wed Feb 20 19:54:37 -0800 2008 http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=2152670