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Review Essay: Five Books Of Poetry By Connie Voisine, Abby Paige

Résonance

Poet Connie Voisine's most recent book of poems, The Bower, explores the legacy of sectarian violence in Northern Ireland from the perspective of a visiting North American family. This retrospective review of the book seeks to place it within the larger context of Voisine's published work in order to reveal themes and concerns that resonate through the poet's entire oeuvre, including an interest in political and cultural borders; an awareness of class and gender dynamics; a symbolic vocabulary clearly influenced by Catholicism and her Franco-American upbringing; and questions about embodiment and its relationship to both hatred and empathy.