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Patheos review says COPIA is 'what poetry should do'

Copia_Bookstore According to a Patheos review, Erika Meitner’s new poetry collection Copia "traverses the nature of existence in a world that is both decaying and blossoming, in which the seemingly mundane provides passage to truth." In this collection about "urban and suburban life, consumption and excess, desire and disappointment, and perhaps mostly about loss and hope," reviewer Dan Wilkinson says "relationships, language, faith, buildings, objects and life itself are simultaneously transitory and expansive, diminishing and abundant. [Meitner's] poems gently explore these tensions, skillfully connecting the past with the present, and the concrete with the spiritual." Many of the collection's poems find their point of departure in urban decay, from ruminations over the life-cycles of towns, to the dissolution of entire industries. This is more than the ubiquitous "plastic shopping bag poem" assigned in creative writing classes. For one, Meitner's poems are more socially conscious. Wilkinson says “the heart of Copia is a series of documentary poems about Detroit,” referring to the handful of documentary poems originally commissioned by Virginia Quarterly Review. The former motor city, now a throwaway line, a place-holding phrase ingrained into East Coast vocabularies as a word synonymous with poverty and decline, is, he says, respectably portrayed: “she documents the city with reverence for both the life it once contained and the life it still holds.” It’s the evolution of language over time, its new applications, and the waxing and waning that all things are subject to, which makes Copia such an adroit title for the collection. Which, ironically, is Latin for abundance. "Copia is a collection that, like all good poetry, rewards repeated engagement. Meitner’s poems sometimes masquerade as simple reflections on the everyday, but between their lines hide startling associations and disconcerting realizations. This is what poetry should do: make us stop and take notice of everything happening–not just everywhere in our world and lives, but everywhere just beneath the surface of it all." Click here for the full Patheos review, "'Abundant and impossible to fill.'" Copia is available online at the BOA Bookstore. Right now BOA is offering FREE SHIPPING on all BOA Bookstore orders! Use promo code SHOPBOA at checkout and select the free shipping option to save big for the holidays!
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