Lisa Zimmerman

Poet

Review of Sainted

Lisa Zimmerman’s Sainted is a wondrous book, a composite of vignettes tendered to fashion a contemporary perspective on ancient figures.  A feminist bravado, awakens voices to reclaim agency and power over one’s own body and soul— “What did God know about the uterus?” –These poems are timely, lyrical, meditative, and inventive. The poet excavates holy terrain, fleshes out Saint Veronica, Saint Clare, and Saint Bernadette, to remind us of the ache and splendor of living.  The poet skillfully casts a wide net on the morality of the ages, invoking the many incarnations of greed, lust, loss and despair.  Each poem marvels with luminous details of small moments, leading to the complex filaments of life: “No man would ever own me.”  These fiercely evocative and revelatory poems, allow us savory glimpses under the seams, “the midwives came and went like weather.”  A crucible, hot to the touch, Sainted could not be timelier in pathos, tone and tenacity.  “I saw tears drop onto his tunic, / small moons of grief.”  A stunning book that holds its heart out, Sainted is profoundly radiant and indelible for how poems can astonish, inform and shape our lives.

—Cynthia Atkins, author of Still-Life with God