Leslie Monsour

Leslie Monsour seems to me one of the finest poets now writing in English. Her verse is descriptively arresting and psychologically astute. Though this collection centrally concerns our imperiled planet and politics, she writes with such clarity and technical skill—and such a warm appreciation of the natural world—that her poems leave us with the hope that empathy and intelligence may yet prevail over greed and folly.

––Timothy Steele, author of All the Fun's in How You Say a Thing

 

Before the Forest Burns marks the return of one of the most naturally gifted and skilled poets of her generation, so it seems fitting that many of the exquisite poems in the collection dramatize the eternal return of life to unpromising landscapes. Like Dickinson, with whom she plays, and Frost, with whom she quarrels, Monsour is a master of the unforgettable phrase, which permanently lodges a moment's inspired vision in the reader's mind. Her work is full of bright talismans for the dark times. Seize them now.

––Boris Dralyuk, author of My Hollywood and Other Poems

 

 

This is the story of how Robert Frost discovered, to his dismay, that a group of his letters and manuscripts had been acquired by the Huntington Library in San Marino, California in 1923. The article describes some of the gems in the collection and Frost's repudiation of two of the poems attributed to him.

From the series: Story Line Press Critical Monographs

Bilingual edition of Richard Wilbur's poems, translated by Rhina Espaillat. Introduction by Leslie Monsour.

A thoughtful analysis by Jessica Su, exploring aspects of time and place in Leslie Monsour's poems

Leslie Monsour’s The House Sitter offers a compassionate, clarifying vision of a fallen Golden State. Whether human or animal, its denizens wrestle with survival, hope, and beauty amid the lush decadence of a natural world that is changed but never tamed: transplanted nasturtiums bloom and die in traffic, the swallows of Capistrano abandon their migratory routes, and tarantulas, scooped from a swimming pool, revive and “scatter like anarchic marionettes.” Monsour’s characters come alive in language we might expect from Elizabeth Bishop had she settled in California instead of Brazil. Whether observing the young soldier at the airport— “part boy, part man, and part machine of battle”—or recollecting her own parents in their evening martini ritual— “Lamplight caressed/their faces as if nothing could go wrong”—Monsour captures time, place, and person with an ease and concision that are, quite simply, unforgettable. --Ned Balbo, competition judge.

Red Hen Press, 2005

“The astonishingly high level of performance throughout this collection of poems would take almost any reader by surprise. Scattered among them are individual poems of such perfected skill, such vivacity, wit and intelligence--exhibiting Dickinson’s cunning, Bishop’s carefulness--that a reader is filled brim-full of gratitude.

–Anthony Hecht

 

"There is often an amorous situation in Leslie Monsour's poems, but their most constant aspect is their observation, their eager looking, as when the water of a swimming pool is seen "Clear to the blurry floor." Such a poem as "The Snail in the Marigold" might put one in mind of that attentive gardner, Emily Dickinson. And in another key entirely, "Illusion of Loss" handles a triditional theme and figure with telling simplicity.

--Richard Wilbur

A few samplings from essays and interviews have been excerpted from various sources, including anthologies and journals.