Dormant

<p class=ql-align-justify>In <em>Dormant</em> <strong>Harriet Ribot</strong>'s deeply honest first book of poetry the reader is invited to share a writer's late life self-discovery. With children long ago raised and husband gone Ribot doesn't over-romanticize her lived experience. When your brain/has lain/dormant/what torment/to waken this thing she tells us in the title poem. In another she writes Patience is time spread thin over peaks of frustration/and mounds of buried dreams still visible/as one looks back over many years. A deep and playful affection for language lace together love loss and painful awakening throughout this lovely book.</p><p class=ql-align-justify><strong>   -Roy Nathanson</strong> is author of <em>Subway Moon</em> and teaches music at the NYU Gallatin School</p><p class=ql-align-justify><br></p><p class=ql-align-justify><br></p><p class=ql-align-justify>I write to share writes <strong>Harriet Ribot</strong> in her new book of poems<em> Dormant.</em> Words tumble gently down the page. An occasional rhyme gives a boost. But the poems always land gently in the heart. Maybe as The Little Imp says The whole world has a common bond of loneliness. Maybe as in The Net There are structures/holding us together in delicate balance. In this keep-moving world where we drink from the fountain of kiss Harriet reminds us that when you are on the corner of somewhere to someplace else that life's what you choose-not what you've found. Loosen up... she urges live it up...show love to someone else! Reader follow the advice in these poems and join with our Poet saying Having loved I can face the future.</p><p class=ql-align-justify><strong>   -Bob Holman</strong> activist poet and filmmaker is author of 17 volumes of poetry most recently </p><p class=ql-align-justify>   <em>(Un)spoken</em> and <em>Life Poem</em> is founder of the Bowery Poetry Club and host of Language Matters</p><p><br></p>