Worn Thresholds

By Julie Berry

Reading Julie Berry's poetry means entering a new poetic space, crossing thresholds of pain and delight at once raw and refined. "like marie d’oignies who buried bloody/ mouthfuls of herself/ in the garden/ i need my poems to be like this," Berry writes in "Touching Ground." "Like this" is finely-turned and constantly surprising, haunting as plainsong, throaty as the blues. Her images are so completely unexpected and yet so thoroughly right that you are left wondering why you never imagined "the minute hand [falling] into the refrigerator and breakfast/ . . . clattering across the lawn/ its spoons and bowls and burning toast." Her eye is keen and quirky; its wide embrace enfolds the highways and cemeteries of southwestern Ontario, flying pianos, her lover's ex-neck, Elizabeth Graves Simcoe, furniture cleaners, suicides and mass strandings. And of course her reader. Here is a poet whose honesty and wry humour loosen the tangles of the heart.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brick Books
• Release date: May 15, 1995
• ISBN: 9781771310130

Julie Berry

Julie Berry is the author of the 2017 Printz Honor and Los Angeles Times Book Prize shortlisted novel The Passion of Dolssa, the Carnegie and Edgar shortlisted All the Truth That’s in Me (2013, Viking), the Odyssey Honor title The Scandalous Sisterhood of Prickwillow Place (2014, Roaring Brook), and several others. She holds a BS from Rensselaer in communication and an MFA from Vermont College. She divides her time between Massachusetts and California with her family. Julie Berry is a prolific author of critically acclaimed books for children, including middle grade and YA novels. Her book The Passion of Dolssa was a 2017 Printz honor title. Julie is active with school visits and conference appearances. For more, see julieberrybooks.com.