Conceived “in the month of pearls” as she tells us in her poem “Birthstone,” Gabrielle Langley is a poet of true luminosity, stringing her “English words like pearls” across continents — from Paris and Milan to Katyn and Istanbul, Lebanon and beyond. I find her to be a remarkable imagist of postmodernity. In Azaleas on Fire, she leads her reader through gardens of flowers rescued from romantic tradition through irony where the fragrance of narcissus and gardenias meets charred wood, “the burn of salt water rising to swallow small children.” She weaves delicacy with strength, a floral lace that is beautiful, tough, untearable.
Azaleas on Fire, by Gabrielle Langley
