The Last Skin

by Barbara Ras

A third collection from a poet whose "beautiful sentences weave the miraculous and mundane into a single, luminous tapestry" (The Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

Barbara has won acclaim for fluid and graceful poems that touch on the small occurrences and mysteries of daily life in the hopes of finding the secret meaning beneath them. Both intimate and wide ranging, her work is unafraid of big subjects and big feelings, and sometimes comedic. Her third collection, The Last Skin, extends and develops these qualities, offering landscapes and characters both domestic and exotic, in poignant personal lyrics of precise description that investigate beauty, grief, death, fragility, time, and loss. Here is a poet engaged with the spirit as well as the political, blending the give and take of the world into her own ecstatic rhythms.

Genres: Poetry

80 pages, Paperback

First published March 30, 2010

Reviews

[Ben · Rating 5 out of 5]

I did an interview with Barbara Ras about this powerful book. It was published in the San Antonio Current:
http://sacurrent.com/arts/story.asp?i...

[Ellis Billington · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection was a work of subtle beauty, stumbling in quietly but profoundly and rarely leaving me wanting more. Through her use of natural imagery to illuminate the human condition, Ras's work reminded me of Mary Oliver's. This collection tackled aging, loss, love, and tourism in ways that resonated deeply with me.

Highly recommend; one of the best Little Free Library finds I've had in awhile.

[James Grinwis · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved Ras's BITE EVERY SORROW and many super poems in here too.

[Janée Baugher · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's interesting to consider the theme that holds these poems together. Such imagination, such poetic leaping. Includes the acclaimed NEW YORKER poems, "Washing the Elephant." A poet's poet, which might make the work seem "inaccessible" to laypeople. Other-worldly poetic lines after lines. Ambitious.

[Carly K · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this. Ras writes about feeling in and out of place, the wonder and luxury of travel, but also the uneasiness of it. Things are simultaneously mundane and terrifying, normal and magical.