Inheritance Of Aging Self by Lucinda Marshall

In this “landscape steeped in loss,” Lucinda Marshall beautifully reminds us to cleave to our memories: scent memories, rearranged and fractured memories, body memories that get absorbed back into the universe. These poems are infused with wisdom to help guide us through the legacy of our own non-being, instructing us to observe the “autumnal dancers”: “a brittle reminder of/ shy green finery/ cautiously unfurled/ in spring’s early sun-warmth,/ hurtling now with grim finality/ into a soggy mosaic/ of brief decoration/ on soon frozen ground.”

–Nancy Naomi Carlson, Author of An Infusion of Violets, Associate Editor, Tupelo Press

From the very beginning of her collection–the title, Inheritance Of Aging Self–Marshall’s approach is satisfyingly clear and direct. Marshall writes about losing people she’s loved, as well as her own mortality, with an insight born of contemplation and wisdom. There is a refreshing frankness to her reflections on illness, aging, memory and death—in “End of Life Directive,” for example, she defies us to rethink our simplistic conceptions of the line between life and death: “one ought not/to presume dichotomies/because edges are ill-defined.” The work is personal, yet universal, resonating long after one turns the last page.

–Tara Campbell, Author of Political AF, Midnight at the Organporium, Circe’s Bicycle, and TreeVolution

Lucinda Marshall’s Inheritance Of Aging Self engages poetry’s time-honored themes about time passing, but with bright defiant narrations that refresh language and activate the imagination. This poet is always watching, noting each moment in human existence, indenting everything with her inimitable fingerprint. Whether in the garden of Eden where “survival was never promised,” or practicing yoga, she speaks of “perpetually rearranged memories…” and then she manifests them.  This creative experience would be nothing without lyricism, prosody, and deep feelings. Marshall gives all of this, and much more, with her memorable new collection.

–Grace Cavalieri, Maryland Poet Laureate