"... Normal life, observed in uncomplicated lyrics, openly tinged with emotion. Rizzo moves from childhood uncertainty (the amazing 'I felt all crumbly inside') through young adulthood’s defiance ('I never surrendered') to the freedom of a more mature wisdom ('I slipped the noose of your love/from my throat'), where all is not sweet dreams and roses: 'If only I could loosen the strivings/for happiness that/fuel my days.' Rizzo’s work helps fill in the 'spaces between words' that she never stops noticing. And we keep being gently surprised.”
Muriel Karr, Toward Dawn and Shape of Pear
“Through the clear-eyed poems in this collection, Lisa Rizzo looks back at her younger life as the child of a hardworking, no-nonsense Midwestern family and at her present, larger life and unfolding sense of beauty. Rizzo travels time and distance in these poems, and a plainspoken wisdom emerges along the way. She writes with an eye for the detail that suggests the feel of a place, and with a heart open to the world.”
Charlotte Muse, A Story Also Grows
“Vivid and evocative, Lisa G. Rizzo’s In Every Poem an Ocean is a mid-life reckoning, tinged by inevitable regret but ultimately rejoicing: 'Cradle your years hard-won to/sift every moment for its beauty/you will have shaped something anew.' Recalling the unfulfilled yearnings of her youth, the poet celebrates her wanderings and comes at last to rest her heart in the 'sky city' of Acoma with its vast perspectives and 'in the spaces
between words.'”
Anne Whitehouse, Bear in Mind and Blessings and Curses
Purchase In the Poem an Ocean here.
