From the Suburbs with the Wedding Dress in Its Coffin. Vom Vorort Mit Dem Hochzeitskleid Im Sarg

“Silvia Kofler’s poems reflect a struggle not unlike that of a Henry James heroine, through her persona’s disenchantment and immersion in the toxic secrets of our nuclear and cultural nightmares take her not to Europe but from her native Austria to America. Exposed to the glitz of Vegas, the tinsel dreams of pop culture, and the hollow core of our betrayed illusions, she seeks the authentic where she finds it. In that way she creates a new cluster of epiphanies that offers such hope as art provides when it is deeply compassionate and informed by a vision enriched by more than one culture. Hers is a voice much needed on both sides of the Atlantic.” – David Ray

“One of the few truly bilingual poets writing in both English and German in the U. S. today, Silvia Kofler achieves the same searching and sustained effect in poems in both languages…. evocations of separation and survival suggest not a solution but rather imaginative longing: that the grey of the complexity of life be admitted, that the beige of conformity be critiqued, and that luminous compassion be spotted on some distant shore beyond the darkness of routine suffering.” – Kathleen Madigan

“… it’s the unexpectedness of Kofler’s metaphors – in English and German – that focuses our attention, anticipating new turns and resolutions. These poems are to the point and unpretentious. They are economical in their language and try to discover just the right word. Kofler doesn’t hesitate to include free and formal poems, such as the villanelle, “Vacancy.” – Philip Miller and Phyllis Becker

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