{"product_id":"kissing-ilaria-goodbye","title":"Kissing Ilaria Goodbye","description":"\u003cp\u003eScenes from a marriage... The anatomy of a marriage... Narratives that have compelled us since Euripides' \u003cem\u003eMedea\u003c\/em\u003e, not least for their portrayal of the precarious position of women, comprise a rich literary vein from which a new story has emerged. It is a rough-cut gem. Not suitable for final polishing. Therein lies the beauty of \u003cem\u003eKissing Ilaria Goodbye, \u003c\/em\u003ethe latest\u003cem\u003e \u003c\/em\u003ecollection by Brooklyn-based poet Hilary Sideris.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e Reader's familiar with Sideris' poetry know it for a signature voice that rises from her natural economy of expression, subtle wit, and true love of language. But in \u003cem\u003eKissing Ilaria Goodbye\u003c\/em\u003e (Ilaria is Italian for Hilary) readers will encounter a\u003cem\u003e new depth of exploration and expression as the poet turns her always-observant eye increasingly upon herself with unsparing honesty. Poems telling the story \u003c\/em\u003eof Sideris' marriage to her Roman husband, her eventual proposal of divorce, and the determination of fate before and after that mid-volume proposal are written with startling immediacy, abjuring any common notion of narrative resolution. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e Scenes in the collection play against a backdrop of societal crisis, government collapse and the quotidian landscape of simply getting along. \u003cem\u003eMy marriage \/ \u0026amp; my country failed. Now I have \/ time to study Greek, \u003c\/em\u003eshe tells us in \"Louloudia\"\u003cem\u003e. \u003c\/em\u003eWhat is most poignant across the collection and in each poem, however, is not the vivid contextual scenery-the confines of a Camry hurtling down the New Jersey Turnpike, a day stretching out along Church Avenue in Brooklyn-but the portraiture. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e Sideris peoples vignettes with well-drawn characters, none more memorable and ultimately sympathetic than the beleaguered husband, Vincenzo. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e These poems, slow, delicate and wise, can't help but elicit readers' empathy. The title poem, lamenting the loss of a cherished identity, is heartbreaking, setting the stage for later poems in which the narrator struggles to bring a truer identity into focus. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e And there is sex. Notably in \"Spandex\", a marvelous demonstration of how much Sideris can express-sadness, longing, grief, adventure, a confessional element-in a short, narrow strip of words on a page. The poem \"Nutshell\" nails it as Sideris humorously quotes Verdi's admonition to a librettist, Francesco Piave: \"DO NOT FORGET \/ FEW WORDS! I REPEAT \/ FEW WORDS!!\" \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e Much is accomplished in few words elsewhere, given Sideris' passion for the Italian language, especially in exchanges with Vincenzo, where she deftly deploys the sometimes misleading pleasures of words and forms-false cognates, silent vowels, lost syllables, prepositions that intervene and change intended meaning completely. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e Sideris reminds us in these poems that all empires fall. All things decay. People die, all of us. That love itself has its demise baked in-the collection is launched with an epigraph from \u003cem\u003eRomeo \u0026amp; Juliet\u003c\/em\u003e. Love, she shows us, may also be our salvation as we seek to recognize what is good, what to hold on to and what to let go; as we come to grips with our solitary being and the finality of that which cannot be changed. \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Hilary Sideris","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44764536078378,"sku":"9781962847575","price":20.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0690\/0891\/6522\/files\/imageloader_2b0cc8ad-f884-4f6a-a802-38b5b0750754.jpg?v=1787962553","url":"https:\/\/thepoetryshop.com\/products\/kissing-ilaria-goodbye","provider":"The Poetry Shop LLC","version":"1.0","type":"link"}