There is nothing distasteful about Rebecca Seiferle's newest poetry collection, Bitters. Where the ale known as bitters is dark and strong, the 77 poems in this book are revealing and soothing. Even in the overtly metaphysical and questioning poem "The Argument," there peeks through a ray of hope in human possibilities. It begins clouded in doubt. . . [b]ut The Argument" ends by shining through what one cannot know for sure to illuminate what we all can surely understand. . . [] In this book, paradise is primarily made of words, not beliefs. Seiferle's poetry reflects a line from Adrienne Rich's "The Dream Lover": "Only where there is language is there world." Seiferle, however, expresses a knowledge of the regenerative power of words at the end of her poem "Bitter Fruit" by declaring "We will have to find another/language if we want another world..." []"Bitters" is more than just a title for this book. It is its dominant theme, running through several titles of poems ("Bitter Herb," Bitter Fruit," "Fear Biter," "A Dream of Bitters"). Other poems are spiced with references to bitters ("a bitter herb," "Mary for bitter-root," "as bitter herbs are crumpled," "a bitter halo in the distant lights"). Bitters are the light in the midnight of reality. . .

It was the Bard himself who said that the task of the poet is to give imagination “a local habitation and a name.” And that is precisely what each poet does, expressing the locality of the self in words. Rebecca Seiferle is a New Mexico poet whose poetic vision is equally at home in metaphysics as in ordinary life. Her new book, Bitters (Copper Canyon, 2001. $14.00) represents a fusion of themes. . .[] Part of what Seiferle uses poetry for is to make the ordinary magical, to imbue events with a sense of transcendence. . .[] The poet says of her alchemical process: “I think of writing as a kind of spiritual practice that is interwoven with existence and life, inseparable from the circumstances and burdens of being. So I find poetry to be the expression of an intersection between my ordinary daily life and the larger issues of history and cultural inheritance, the burdens of myth and religion.” And it is this interweaving which rewards her readers with the rich perception of her verse.

Rebecca Seiferle is the author of two previous books of poetry, The Music We Dance To and The Ripped-Out Seam. She has received the Writers' Exchange Award, the Bogin and the Hemley Awards from the Poetry Society of American, and her work was included in Best American Poetry 2000 and The Extraordinary Tide: New Poetry by American Women. Her translation of Vallejo's Trilce was a finalist for the PenWest Translation Award. Her translations of Alfonso D'Aquino and Ernesto Lumbreras are forthcoming in Reversible Monuments: Contemporary Mexican Poetry from Copper Canyon. Her translation of Vallejo's The Black Heralds is also forthcoming from Copper Canyon. She is the Editor of The Drunken Boat. For more information, visit her webpage.