The Blood Barn

Author: Carrie Lorig

Publisher: Inside the Castle (2019)

A book of five interconnected poems, all called The Blood Barn, by American poet Carrie Lorig. A formally complex and emotionally formal book of poetry confronting trauma and body dysmorphia. 

“This is a book that writhes against the definitive singular or plural or possessive pronoun, against the lie that history can be owned, and with the bodies that swell and scab under that lie. Yes, this is a book about a hurt and an illness that happened to a person in the past, but it is not about cure or convalescence. It is about the capacity to take care where none existed before, the forgiving space of correspondence / being beside oneself and others, the body as a gem stuck to a pulsing mountain. That is: the risk, the horror, the possibility of healing without end.”

–Liz Bowen