Cathedral/Grove

Cathedral/Grove, Susan Glickman’s brilliant new collection, comes to terms with the question of legacy—what we leave behind as a species, as citizens, and as parents. Marked by the lucidity and precision she has been celebrated for, the poems encompass the monuments of Western civilization, a climate in decline, and the pandemic. The title is inspired by the fire that ravaged Notre Dame Cathedral in 2019, destroying the wooden roof-frame known as La Forêt; it also alludes to “Cathedral Grove,” otherwise known as MacMillan Provincial Park, one of the last old growth stands on Vancouver Island. In poems of praise and lament for our fractured world—“Everything is becoming more itself / or something else,” she writes—Glickman has tapped into a magnificent vein of lyric richness.

Reviews

Praise for Susan Glickman:

“These lyric poems have an unassuming grace and clarity.”—Barbara Carey, Toronto Star

“Glickman’s striking sensory poems are tightly controlled, even choreographed, with music.”—Crystal Hurdle, Canadian Literature

“Cathedral/Grove seamlessly ponders and elevates the ordinary, using it as an axis through which the transcendent may be considered.” —Tiffany Morris, Room Magazine

“Amidst planetary ruins, and between the sublime and picturesque, Glickman’s words restore domestic and natural order.” —Michael Greenstein, The Seaboard Review

“Glickman’s light touch allows profound metaphysical questions to flourish absent dense philosophical language or inscrutable academic jargon. It’s a democratic approach that is, above all, welcoming to a broad range of readers.” —Steven W. Beattie, That Shakespearean Rag

“Whatever the theme, Glickman seasons her compassion with sharpness. In ‘Her Past,’ the speaker, thinking about her late parents, asks, ‘What do people mean / when they speak of ‘a good death’?’ Such darkness, intelligence, and commitment to language exemplify her mastery—as if we needed more proof.” -Christopher Levenson, Literary Review of Canada