Overview

"""Leaving Santorini"" opens in the middle of a woman's story filled with sorrows--the death of her mother, the end of an abusive marriage--and turns it into a story of renewal, hope, joy, and rediscovery of her words, her powers, and her children. The poems in the book reveal the unfolding of sadness into joy, through the healing journeys of traveling to islands and learning who she can be in the world."

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9781646620753

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Reviews

In her stunning poem Visiting Lissadell , Heather Bryant describes a woman who would not have brought her gun, instead etched her name on/the glass pane, scratching out the letters with a large-cut diamond. The poems in Leaving Santorini are grounded in similarly-etched clarity, tamping down explosive despair (at a mother's death, at adultery or loneliness in travel) then drawing out hard-edged brilliance, radiant despite loss and risk--poems like gems of sudden unexpected beauty. --Carol Anne Muske-Dukes What I especially admire in Heather Bryant's Leaving Santorini is the courage with which the poet engages with extremes of grief and joy (love, divorce, recovery; a mother's death; a recuperative stay in Greece; a different sort of odyssey in Ireland), and her tenacious hold on the ordinary world in the midst of taxing emotional pressures. Admirable too is how, in grounded plain language, she can rise to touch some spiritual truths: how our departed dead can be present In the clouds, the air, the dust, everywhere; or how the recovering body can be Buoyant with the clarity of gravity and grace. The poems themselves--like a poet's journal of sensations, observations, conclusions--hold their precious small shining moments, as a tiny bottle of coral holds her father's spirit of adventure. By means of the poems themselves, so, the poet achieves inner and outer clarity, and it is a gift well earned. --Eamon Grennan In this collection of poetry, the eighth from Heather Corbally Bryant, the reader finds a rare moral courage and honesty in how the poet deals with betrayal, divorce and suffering. Solace is found in Greece at first, where she finds she could perhaps imagine a new universe where there was more sunshine less grief. Later poems in this book, titled, Visiting Lissadell fulfills a long held passion to be where Ireland's geography, literature, customs and people are experienced. The poet is set free to be away from the world and closer to eternity. At last joy is found in a place where poetry is valued with generosity. These poems are a witness to loving observations from start to finish. --Joan McBreen

"In her stunning poem ""Visiting Lissadell"", Heather Bryant describes a woman who ""would not have brought her gun, instead etched her name on/the glass pane, scratching out the letters with a large-cut diamond."" The poems in Leaving Santorini are grounded in similarly-etched clarity, tamping down explosive despair (at a mother's death, at adultery or loneliness in travel) then drawing out hard-edged brilliance, radiant despite loss and risk--poems like gems of sudden unexpected beauty."" --Carol Anne Muske-Dukes What I especially admire in Heather Bryant's Leaving Santorini is the courage with which the poet engages with extremes of grief and joy (love, divorce, recovery; a mother's death; a recuperative stay in Greece; a different sort of odyssey in Ireland), and her tenacious hold on the ordinary world in the midst of taxing emotional pressures. Admirable too is how, in grounded plain language, she can rise to touch some spiritual truths: how our departed dead can be present In the clouds, the air, the dust, everywhere; or how the recovering body can be Buoyant with the clarity of gravity and grace. The poems themselves--like a poet's journal of sensations, observations, conclusions--hold their precious small shining moments, as a tiny bottle of coral holds her father's spirit of adventure. By means of the poems themselves, so, the poet achieves inner and outer clarity, and it is a gift well earned. --Eamon Grennan In this collection of poetry, the eighth from Heather Corbally Bryant, the reader finds a rare moral courage and honesty in how the poet deals with betrayal, divorce and suffering. Solace is found in Greece at first, where she finds she could perhaps ""imagine a new universe where there was more sunshine less grief."" Later poems in this book, titled, ""Visiting Lissadell"" fulfills a long held passion to be where Ireland's geography, literature, customs and people are experienced. The poet is set free to ""be away from the world and closer to eternity."" At last joy is found in a place where poetry is valued with generosity. These poems are a witness to loving observations from start to finish. --Joan McBreen"

Author Information

Heather Corbally Bryant teaches in the Writing Program at Wellesley College; previously she taught at Penn State University and Harvard College where she won awards for her teaching. She received her AB from Harvard and her PhD from the University of Michigan. Her first book, How Will the Heart Endure: Elizabeth Bowen and the Landscape of War (University of Michigan Press) won the Donald Murphy prize from the ACIS. She has published poems in The Christian Science Monitor, The Paddock Review, and in the anthology: In Another Voice, Open-Eyed, Full-Throated: An Anthology of American/Irish Poets (Dublin: Arlen House, 2019). Cheap Grace, her first chapbook was published by Finishing Line Press. Her second collection of poems, Lottery Ticket, was published in 2013 by the Parallel Press Series of the University of Wisconsin Libraries-Madison. Her third chapbook, Compass Rose, appeared in 2015 from Finishing Line Press. My Wedding Dress, her first long collection of poems, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2016. Thunderstorm, her second full-length volume of poetry, was published by Finishing Line Press in the fall of 2017. It was nominated for a Mass Book Award in 2018. Her sixth collection of poetry, Eve's Lament, was published by Finishing Line Press in the winter of 2018. Her seventh collection of poetry, James Joyce's Water Closet, (2018) won honorable mention in the Open Chapbook Competition of Finishing Line Press. Two of her poems were nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2018. Practicing Yoga in a Former Shoe Factory, her ninth collection, is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press in 2020.

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