Melissa Green

33. The Linen Way by Melissa Green (2013, 90 pages, Read May 23-28, e-book)

Wow, intense. It's not clear what happened in her early life, but whatever it was, Melissa's only escape was to get lost in literature. By her young adulthood she found herself either suicidal, or living for poetry - I mean for writing poetry. Her extreme intensity caught the attention of Derek Walcott, who pushed her, resulting in what became her first book, and the Russian exile Joseph Brodsky. Both Walcott and Brodsky later won a Noble Prize for literature. At the same time she was writing poetry under their influence, she was in and out of psychiatric centers that kept her under 24 hour suicide watch.

She writes about her young adult experiences, mixing poetry into her writing. In my kindle version there are audio links to her reading her own poetry, and one video link which we find out later was an event she attended while under suicide watch, barely able to eat anything. The extremes to which she lives for and breathes poetry are somehow just something other outside my lexicon. I was stunned by poetry that came out, which is even better with her own voice. Every word in this memoir is intense. Don't pick this up lightly.

LT's timjones interviewed Green last year (link here). I read the interview not knowing anything about Green, and it caught my attention and led me to read this memoir.

2014
https://www.librarything.com/topic/172769#4738372… (més)

This is a very moving personal memoir by a poet whose work drew the praise and admiration of such great poets as Derek Walcott and Joseph Brodsky, yet who has fought a decades-long battle against mental illness and the impulse to suicide.

"The Linen Way" quotes liberally from Melissa Green's debut collection "The Squanicook Eclogues", a multiple prize-winner on its publication in 1987 that was republished in 2010, and also features poetry by Brodsky and Rilke.

This is another excellent ebook from New Zealand's Rosa Mira Books, whose adventurous publishing programme includes writers from the US and Argentina as well as New Zealand.

Highly recommended to everyone, and even more highly recommended if you love poetry.… (més)