New!
Container
Gardening

read poems

Ordering info

Click here
to read
reviews and excerpts from
Afterwords.

 

mending

what is broken can
               (never)
be repaired
the pieces can
               (not)
be put back
shift them beneath your fingers
without looking
feel the jagged tender shards seek
their place
turn them
let them catch the light
hear them singing in your hands
take them all
each hair each blink
each ineffable leaf
find the most sacred fit
for the rough shining edges
it will be
               (almost)
like new

I think of my new book, Container Gardening, as a collection of poems about about what is perishable, what endures, and what makes us who we are. After my first book, Afterwords, which dealt very specifically with loss, these speak of how we pick up the pieces and go on to create the private and public worlds we inhabit

Click here to read reviews and excerpts from Container Gardening.

My book, Afterwords, is a collection of poems about loss and the journey back. The writer Ken Foster has said there may be just one universal story: somebody lost something. Afterwords, too, tells a story of loss, but these poems are reminders that the "afterwords" can also speak of surviving with what remains.

Click here to read reviews and excerpts from Afterwords.

CenterPiece is a one-person play I have written and that I perform. It looks at the patchwork of life experiences we all share, from assimilating out family legends to learning about love and loss to finding our own voices and moving into the center of our lives. Click here for more info.
The Painting on the cover of Afterwords is by Eric Sealine.
The painting on the cover of Container Gardening is by Faith Hochberg.
 

homesteading

lost language

grace

figure and ground

ether

Container Gardening

Distant Relation

Fortune

See on www.ellensteinbaum.com

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©2004 Ellen Steinbaum

My photo on the home page is by Peter Urban.
The cover of my book, Afterwords, was designed by Kate Misail.

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