Fruit Geode

How does a body do what it does: make love, mistakes, create life, exist after life; how does a body evolve, celebrate, regret, reconsider its big and small moments: these are the passionate concerns of Alicia Rabins’ Fruit Geode, a book that I could not stop reading once I started, a book that drew me in with intimacy and force and then grabbed my heart hard, which is to say, if you have a body, this book is a must read.—Lynn Melnick

Against the tide of received wisdoms about mothering and loving, one can only marvel at the personal cosmology Alicia Jo Rabins builds in these poems. Lyrically bent towards both gratitude and wonder, yet defiance, too, she honors every shade of emotion crossing the threshold into motherhood and marriage. Fruit Geode amounts to a kind of ritualistic reclaiming of the body and spirit as mother and artist in the presence of both her progeny and her ancestors who watch as she spirits herself into song again and again.—Major Jackson