Path of Totality by Niina Pollari

Path of Totality

Poems

Niina Pollari

Catapult · Print & ebook · February 8, 2022

Exploring the sudden loss of her child, the hope that precedes this crisis, and the suffering that follows, this collection of poetry renders a shattering experience with candor and immediacy.

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Who it’s for
Spare poems meet devastating grief with candor, precision, and flashes of startling humor.
Themes
Child loss, Grief, Motherhood
Genres
Poetry About Death, Personal Memoirs, Family Poems

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For younger readers: Light Filters In: Poems, Secret of Me,the, Truth Is

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About this book

Exploring the sudden loss of her child, the hope that precedes this crisis, and the suffering that follows, this collection of poetry renders a shattering experience with candor and immediacy. This collection is about the eviscerating loss of a child, the hope that precedes this crisis, and the suffering that follows. Spare, plain, sometimes startling in their snatches of humor, Pollari’s poems careen into the “tilted reality” of grief.

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This is poetry dredged from shock and rage, then dissected with pointillistic precision. Many of the pieces are closer to prose: in plain, forceful, language that will capture readers outside the poetry audience, they uncover and name sentiments outside of what is expected in books about child loss and grief: for instance, the embarrassment Niina felt for letting herself feel hope and joy, for revealing that she desired to be a mother at all, and for having to inform the world that her desire would not be granted. A shattering experience rendered with candor and immediacy, Path of Totality is a book “for anyone who ever expected anything” about a rarely told experience of motherhood.

Grief, Plainspoken

Spare poems meet devastating grief with candor, precision, and flashes of startling humor.

Come here for

  • Language that names feelings often left unsaid
  • Poems that move between force and plain speech

Expect

  • A candid account of child loss and its aftermath
  • Humor appearing in unexpected, tilted moments

Where it sits

Poetry About Death97%
Family Poems65%
Personal Memoirs48%

Percentages are BookFrontier’s reading of the book.

Publisher categories

  • Personal Memoirs
  • Poetry About Death
  • Women Poets
Authors
Niina Pollari
Publisher
Catapult
Published
February 8, 2022
Format
Print & ebook
Theme
Child loss · Grief · Motherhood
Reading lane
Personal Memoirs