Bicycle Lotus

by Sara Backer

Bicycle Lotus, a small collection of poems and flash essays that explore our choices to embrace or reject the wild world, won the 2015 Turtle Island Poetry Prize.

38 pages, Paperback

Published December 9, 2015

About the author

I spent three years in Japan (1990-1993), as the first American and first woman to serve as visiting professor of English at Shizuoka University. This experience informed my first novel, American Fuji, which was a book club pick of the Honolulu Advertiser and a nominee for the Kiriyama Prize.

Recently, I earned an MFA at Vermont College of Fine Arts in poetry. My chapbook, Bicycle Lotus, won the 2015 Turtle Island Poetry Award. A second chapbook, Scavenger Hunt, came out in 2018. My first full book of poetry, Such Luck, is my newest book.

I teach freshman comp and a few other stray courses at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell, lead a reading group at a men's prison, and tramp around the woods in New Hampshire.

Reviews

[Tracy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This little unassuming chapbook is the real deal. Be prepared to be subtly slapped in the face (intentional contradiction, I know) by seemingly innocuous poems interspersed with prose that challenge readers to examine their place in nature, relationship to others, and their relationship to soul calling creativity. Not to be missed are "Your Egret," "The Eye of the Beholder, " "A Predator's Dilemma," "On Looking Like the Indian I'm Not," and "That Darn Coyote Again." This has to be savored again and again as its beautifully raw ideas marinate.

[John Reinhart · Rating 5 out of 5]

Drawing heavily on her relationship to the natural world, Backer's chapbook is a worthy winner of the 2015 Turtle Island Poetry Award. In 26 pages of poetry, she draws the reader into her observations of the egret, water horse, wasp, tree, coyote, wolf, goose, owl, crow, and human being. Her poems are simultaneously accessible and startling. Most striking to me were "Citizen Coma" and "The Drowning Man." The former contains the lines "...If I throw a melting glacier / in your face, will you wake?" The poem "Wasp nest" also stood out to me, describing the destruction of nature's beauty out of simple fear.

The social sensitivity of her work kept me thoroughly engaged. The deftness of her language, form, and insight made these poems sing. I highly recommend this collection.

[Savannah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sick of “poets” who elevate sounding erudite over actually communicating anything? Or, on the other hand, poems so simple they could appear in a sympathy card? Then this book is the rare gem for you. Backer’s poems give you pause, depth and meaning. The tense elegance overlies a well of feeling all humans share. Backer has the wildly unusual gift of poetry: communicating, through refined grace, straight to the reader’s mind and heart to complete an interactive experience.