The Moon Knows No Boundary

Description

88 pages
$12.00
ISBN 1-55071-185-7
DDC C811.6

Publisher

Year

2004

Contributor

Marguerite Andersen is a professor of French studies at the University
of Guelph.

Review

The poems in The Moon Knows No Boundary evoke the 20th-century
experience—beginning with the Russian Revolution—of civil chaos,
war, and the ensuing displacement of families and individuals. Names of
countries and cities form a musical leitmotif throughout the book, with
generations of one family travelling throughout the world, creating a
“Russian Diaspora” of extraordinary strength. Members of this family
sometimes meet, in reality and also only in thought, in order to
celebrate their links. Many are born stateless: “Not all are born with
the tags of nations / hanging bloody from umbilical cords.”

The Moon Knows No Boundary is at once political and personal. On the
last page, the poet questions her right to remain so deeply personal:
“Dubious poet. hugging your private life … / at a time like this!”
Yet the lives of the displaced must be kept alive, and what better
repository than the poet’s memory?

Tags

Citation

Tilberg, Mary., “The Moon Knows No Boundary,” Canadian Book Review Annual Online, accessed October 13, 2024, https://cbra.library.utoronto.ca/items/show/16412.