Exploring Loss with Page Hill Starzinger

Guest Post by Shin Yu Pai

In Page Hill Starzinger’s Vortex Street, the poet explores many different kinds of loss, to resist squandering what is given. In her revisions of complicated grief, she takes up the subjects of unborn children, the ending of fertility, and becoming an orphaned adult after the death of parents. The fleeting life cycle of a mayfly which only endures for 24 hours is held against the cognitive decline of an aging father. In this act of ongoing “rentrayage” or remaking, the poet turns towards locating the quiet harbor where grief can be held—through the senescent body, its memories, and the exterior dwelling places that anchor us to the past.

Vortex Street by Page Hill Starzinger. Barrow Street Press, May 2020.

Reviewer bio: Shin Yu Pai is the author of AUX ARCS, Adamantine, Sightings, and Equivalence. In March 2020, Entre Rios Books published Ensō, a 20-year survey of her work across disciplines. For more info, visit www.shinyupai.com.