cover image What's Become of Eden: Poems of Family at Century's End

What's Become of Eden: Poems of Family at Century's End

. Slapering Hol Press, $12 (0pp) ISBN 978-0-9624178-4-9

This anthology of 40 poems, edited by poet Strickland (The Red Virgin), provides an emotionally resonant glimpse into contemporary family relationships, admirably revealing the complexity and ambivalence that surround such personal bonds. The collection's primary strength lies in the sincerity and power of disparate voices mingling. These are brave, honest and moving poems-the kinds of poems that most readers will find impossible to ignore. They perceptively redefine standard notions of family in modern-day terms, and with unsentimental clarity. Taken on an individual basis, however, far too many of the poems are highly flawed-unsubtle, hyperbolic, clumsily prosaic or didactic. The consistently disappointing craftsmanship comes perilously close to lending the anthology an amateurish quality. But the cumulative emotional momentum generated is quite extraordinary, as What's Become of Eden confronts, mourns and celebrates themes of lost innocence and forbidden self-knowledge within the rubric of contemporary family relationships. (Dec.)