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From acclaimed poet and novelist Melissa Ginsburg, an observant, unflinching collection examining the interconnected systems between the domestic and natural worlds.
“Again and again // you ocean the marsh, lock the hurricane in the bathtub,” Melissa Ginsburg writes in her raw, wise third collection. “You walk straight into the spider’s web // and close its door behind you.”
Rooted deeply in landscape, Runoff treads the invisible lines that separate one property from another, that separate the land from the water and the air, the self from the surrounding world, the self from other people, the living from the dead. While the speaker endures the final years of a long marriage, the last years of a mother’s long illness, and the unavoidable reminders of our worsening climate catastrophe, she roves and pushes against boundaries both physical and psychic: property lines, fences, the impossible distance between one human mind and another. In times when everything seems porous and nothing feels safe, these poems are born from the moment just before the speaker wakes to the conscious understanding that freedom is a possibility, and that she is strong enough to claim it.
In search of meaning, the speaker turns to geometry and architecture, to the mechanisms of locks, hinges, germinating seeds. Woven throughout are figures including plants, animals, ghosts, waterways, the minds of storms, domestic spaces, images from fairy tales and tarot cards. Even while undone by grief and fear, she looks closely, intently, at the world, in the belief that heightened attention is a form of communion and a path toward a more hopeful future.
“When Ginsburg’s eye turns to the outdoors in this marvelous collection, it bodies a most resonant and unforgiving call to wound and encourage wonder. It double-dares us, via star anise, chicken yards, and herons spearing tadpoles, to not look away—and I cannot.”—Aimee Nezhukumatathil, author of World of Wonders
“In Runoff, Melissa Ginsburg has ‘planted / trees like messages / left them / in a greening wake.’ These poems unearth a new depth of experience, where beauty and decay offer tender reflections on memory, time, and the inevitability of change. From the delicate intricacies of beekeeping to the invasive nature of Queen Anne’s lace, this collection is a testament to Ginsburg’s mastery of fragmented language and her ability to evoke emotion with stunning clarity. I am in awe of her keen eye for detail and her connectedness to the natural world. She tills the extraordinary from the ordinary by ‘studying the runoff, rivulets of mulch and topsoil, / concentrated lushness where the water finally settles.’ This is Ginsburg’s strongest poetry collection to date.”—January Gill O’Neil, author of Glitter Road
“Melissa Ginsburg’s Runoff explores domesticity, motherhood, and grief in a circumscribed rural landscape. In delicate, sophisticated sequencing and repetitions, these poems juxtapose a richly lived domestic life with loss, threat, and even harm. This book feels beautifully haunted.”—G. C. Waldrep, author of The Opening Ritual