Markers and Shrines - (Carnegie Mellon University Press Poetry) by Margot Schilpp (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

In Markers and Shrines, Margot Schilpp traces the moments that define us--the losses that strip away our former selves and the resilience that emerges in their wake. These poems illuminate the way the past etches itself onto the future, displaying how experience, no matter how painful, strengthens and redefines us.

With lyrical precision and a musician's ear for language, Schilpp crafts a world where memory lingers and meaning deepens. Her unembellished eloquence and eye for striking detail turn the everyday into something enlightening, reminding us that even in loss, there is beauty. Markers and Shrines is a reflection on survival and the unseen forces that shape who we become.

Review Quotes

"Afterswarm is a collection of powerful, sometimes kaleidoscopic meditations on the human condition in a universe akin to Steven Crane's, one which has 'no sense of obligation' for our existence. The trials of mutability, heartbreak, alienation, and mundanity are met with stoical tenacity (and, occasionally, wry humor) while 'shimmerings' of beauty and love are 'syncopated against loss.' These poems strike deep. And Schilpp's unembellished eloquence, musician's ear, and eye for evocative detail energize every page of this extraordinary book."-- "William Trowbridge, author of Vanishing Point"

Previous Praise for Margot Schilpp:

"The abiding interest of these poems are memory and the difficulty of making a self. I read this book as an emotional narrative, the details of the poet's life less important than the spirit in which they are rendered. It's Schilpp's lyrical imagination that I'm most drawn to here: I can feel her, in poem after poem, creating a reality that is shaped most of all by beauty. The poems succeed because they show her struggling to redeem her past. It's a testament to her ability as a poet that I know myself better having read this book. These are beautiful, quietly powerful poems."-- "Bob Hicok"

Previous Praise for Margot Schilpp:

"The poems of Afterswarm are concerned with our most fundamental choices, those defining swerves of intention--to embrace or abandon a career, to marry, to divorce--and especially the life-changing decision to have children after long certainty not to. In midlife's creation of 'a grammar of willing away, ' of evoking and releasing alternate and former selves humming on the vanishing edge of possibility, Schilpp hides 'little blazes in the wings' of the familiar, the everyday now, discovering the music not of finale but of doors opening. Afterswarm is ultimately less about abandonment than a deep gratitude for arrival. 'Relying on history / got us nowhere. So we sang, ' she writes. While taking on fully the anxieties of midlife, of parenting and loss, both potential and real, these poems resist the nowhere of despair and sing beautifully, taking 'seriously the solemn job of love.'"-- "Sandra Meek"

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