Intervening Absence

Author: Carrie Olivia Adams

Publisher: Ahsahta Press (2009)

Carrie Olivia Adams delves into a space defined by air and sky, each movement another scene of a movie re-filmed many times over. Intervening Absence, a series of sequences that question silence and interaction (and which both stand alone and themselves interact), is a work of strong architectural integrity populated by speakers whose vulnerability is extreme. Adams writes, "The poems wait, lie still. The poems creep and jump forward. The poems tense and relax their muscles. They interact with the unseen, the wished for, and the undeniably present. I can only hope that in their whispers to you they intervene." These poems calmly announce a realm of interrupted conversations with the self as moving pictures projected on parlor walls, where Adams engages the idea of pause and distance.

"Clarity and alteration are at work in Carrie Olivia Adams' first book, Intervening Absence, which seeks for the personal a frame or lens that is by turns philosophical and filmic."

–Lisa Fishman