Loss and Invention by Ann Gengarelly

“Ann Gengarelly is a messenger between the material and immaterial worlds. She reports back to us that there are devastating damages in the past both personal and historical that call for a reckoning, and there are gorgeous transformative powers in the present that call for our attention. She is alert to the “calculus of time”. She is unafraid. Her approach is to be alert and alive to indwelling as a spiritual practice of god listening. The poems reveal devoted attention and mindfulness whether she is writing about the resilience of the willow or Cordelia’s lament from King Lear. The flower for Ann Gengarelly is a trigger. In that way she is an anthologist, that is from the anthers of flowers comes a way of entering into the world of blossom and abundance as a necessary counterweight to the difficult world.”

–Bruce Smith, professor, Syracuse University MFA Program and author of Devotions

“The beautiful poems in Loss and Invention sing of persistence and survival, the mysteries of the garden, the healing that awaits in the natural world. Guided by the seasons, haunted by ancestral ghosts, Ann Gengarelly takes us on an intimate journey through a northern landscape, balancing light and shadow, grief and love. Despite unspeakable sorrow, her speakers find kinship with trees and listen to “the music of snow.” They get close to the earth and its plants and animals, explore motherhood and daughterhood with a wisdom grounded in attention. Gengarelly is a poet who understands “the wordless language of hummingbirds.” I loved this courageous, hopeful book.”

–Diana Whitney, editor & book coach, author of Dark Beds

“From its title joining “Loss and Invention,” Ann Gengarelly‘s poetry collection meets both sorrowful and mystical struggles with clear-eyed, eloquent acceptance. While the poems often contain unanswerable questions, they also insist on turning toward the consoling transformations of the natural world—such as those impressionistically rendered as “the talk of trees” and fog “slow-dancing above the pond.” Even as she includes the reader with generous tenderness as “part of the caravan of the wounded,” Gengarelly reminds us to “reclaim our roots of embracing/both darkand light.”

–Elizabeth Rosner, author of three novels and a poetry collection; most recently the author of Survivor Café: The Legacy of Trauma and the Labyrinth of Memory.