Intaglio

Winner of the 2005 Stan and Tom Wick Poetry Prize

The image evoked by Intaglio, this first collection by Ariana-Sophia Kartsonis, rests on a paradox, one perhaps central to the poetic impulse itself: that design can be shaped by what is cut away, by the loss that surrounds it, so that what is missing creates the negative space which raises the figure in relief, presents it to sight, and touch. Relief: a word whose two meanings–one artistic and material, the other emotional and intangible, together suggest how art engraves meaning. –Eleanor Wilner, Judge

Intaglio is a remarkable new book by a haunting new voice. Freighted with music and beauty, even the simplest lines are memorable: ‘There is this heron in a hush of lift / and my eyes are filled with it.’ In the lift, there is also a lyric pressure, an inner intensity which evokes the best kind of madness: ‘Let Nothing be that / which bitch-slaps the heart, / for the heart, like a hospital, / is a many-winged thing.’ Kartsonis has offered up a vision both playful and painful, all of it lit with the eerie glow of her brilliance. What a lovely and terrifying offering. What an extraordinary introduction to this new poet. –Laura Kasischke

With Intaglio, Kartsonis carefully incises the sensuality of history onto the fleet attentions of the day. And onto loss, onto bereavement, she incises the incredible, now credible, luxuries of everlastingness. This is a formidable debut, lavish in its mind and loves. –Donald Revell