paper • 100 pages • 15.95
ISBN-13: 978-1-935536-85-7

Event Boundaries

April Ossmann

Event Boundaries considers ways our relationships and growth as individuals are interdependent, whether it’s possible to consider any relationship (including with ourselves) independent of the culture and environment it exists in; whether we create our culture and environment in part through the way we enact our relationships, to what degree reality is objective or a matter of perception, and how we come to terms with our and others’ mortality.

“Sigh,” from Event Boundaries:

April snow bends

     each lilac branch,

 

heavy and wet

     as your body on mine

 

after love-making,

     but less warm—

 

in truth, a better simile

     for loss than love,

 
though love appears
 
     predicated on loss—
 
 
or the fear of it—
 
     surely, every new love
 
 
predicts new loss—
 
     branch, you bend
 
 
more easily than we,
 
     but sooner break.
 
 
This snow’s weeping
 
      is its vanishing,
 
 
but the lilac’s sigh of relief
 
     is not its life—
 
 
no breath is ours to keep,
 
      just as no body is.
Praise by Donald Revell
Praise by Lynn Emanuel
Praise by Cynthia Huntington
Praise from Library Journal
Praise from the Bennington Banner

“…Ossmann’s idiomatic mastery bespeaks ‘the opportunity to perfect/the perfect clamor.’ This is a book that climaxes in a Quietude dearly urgent now.”—Donald Revell

“…This is a work of maturity and severity, a book that refuses to look away. Event Boundaries is, despite or because of its starkness, a pleasure to read, and, I would add, it is a necessary read.”—Lynn Emanuel

“…Her understated wit continues to remind us that despair can be a failure of the imagination. What quick bright work this is…”—Cynthia Huntington

“Even ‘Mayhem’s Meditation’ reminds readers that they are powerless against ‘those forces,’ but they might as well get on board and enjoy the ride: ‘but as far as the mayhem itself goes,/ you’re alone with whatever your god/ … gave you.’ VERDICT Thoughtful poetry readers should investigate.”—Library Journal

“…Ossmann brings a deft touch of word choice and poetic structure that moves those human events from the level of the commonplace to the extraordinary.”—Bennington Banner Read the full review here.