Marieve Rugo

The Only Afterlife: Poems Marieve Rugo

Commendation Quotes: Taking as their subject the 'bitter wisdoms' learned in a childhood marked by war, exile, and family strife, Marieve Rugo's poems reveal the courage of survival and memory. In her new volume, "The Only Afterlife," we see how Rugo's nuanced language is attentive to unexpected beauties - a skein of Canada geese 'unwinding through sapphire air, ' her mother swimming naked in a 'flat turquoise bay... bronze fish spattering diamonds, ' 'the grammar of buds' in springtime. Giving voice to 'the unspeakable' burdens of knowledge, Rugo explores the 'invisible boundaries' of love and despair, wisdom and illusion. These are poems of a life lived fully in the candid awareness of how loss opens a space for gratitude. Biographical Note: Marieve Rugo was born in Bucharest, Romania, and arrived at adulthood in New York by way of four other countries, four languages, and seven parents. She graduated from Radcliffe College and later took a graduate degree at Brown, where she also taught for several years. Her first book, "Fields of Vision," won the Alabama Prize. Her work has also appeared in "Chelsea," "The Kenyon Review," "The Southern Review," "The Georgia Review," and many other journals. She lives in Boston.