One Body

<p><em>One Body </em>is Margaret Gibson's most intimate collection of poems to date. Written as if to honor the injunction "Work to simplify the heart" the poems are direct empathetic and tender in their study of life and death. The thirteen poems of the opening sequence as well as other poems throughout look steadily at life and death until they are transparently "one body." "Closer to death" she writes "I want great faith <em>and </em>great doubt." Whether the focus is personal or social Gibson has written the poems in this stunning collection "because I want to see / how the body goes still / how the mind how the lens of the eye / magnifies to an emptiness / so deep so flared wide / there is everywhere field and the Source / of field." <em>One Body </em>is the work of a richly contemplative poet.</p>