Republic of Mercy : Poems

In Sharon Wang's thrilling and corporeal geometry, touch dominates, if often in its `aftermarks': singes, whiffs, folds of fabric, echoing gestures between bodies. With generous language and quicksilver intelligence, Wang expresses `a hunger so large it stops the mouth.' Her poems describe what is `hard and brilliant,' the spaces between objects, and what's left in the wake of losses. "Despite its attunement both to elegy and to witness, the mode is praise: `He loved the world. He loved it suddenly / and without reason.' . . . As the poet works to understand, `If in fact it wasn't possible to build / the world anew,' she does build--extravagantly, judiciously, lovingly. The result is a book of radiant integrity." - from the judges' citation for the Kundiman Poetry Prize.