Carol Muske-Dukes — Twin Cities

Penguin 2011 Paperback, 84pp. A sophisticated and lyrical new collection from one of today's finest living poets. Carol Muske-Dukes is an acclaimed novelist and poet whose latest collection, Sparrow, a haunting elegy for her late husband, was a finalist for the National Book Award. Twin Cities is an emotionally rich book of poems about how things double-by reflection, by reproduction, by severance. The poems embark from the twin cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, divided by a legendary river, and move on to the parallel histories of a life lived and a life imagined-and the random intersection of the two. Lit by loss, these moving poems navigate between the poles of love and grief, curse and blessing, abandonment and rescue-they are two, and they are one. (ISBN: 9780143119647). Very Good.