Lisa Bickmore
Reviews
"Lisa Bickmore gives us a powerful new collection, in which 'there are two lives, / the tranquil one and the conflagration.' These are poems rich in both—and in their interplay—where, as the poet says, 'Wildflower seeds exploded there / with the flicked matches I walked away from.' What makes the poems in FLICKER such a rich experience is their fierce honesty as they demonstrate a willingness to alchemically enter the fire of one's life in order to attain tranquility. Bickmore offers generative complexities of transformation, as when the cat in 'Thaumaturge' eats a bird, and 'the bird's heart [becomes] a power inside her.' Read these poems with a sincere desire to connect with others and with the world. Taste these poems, savor them, and bring them—most dearly—into the body's cells. They will reward you and become a power inside you too."
George Kalamaras, Judge, 2014 Antivenom Prize, Elixir Press
"flicker parts a moving veil where loss must somehow become a strength, passion become a transformation. Lost loved ones, still on the poet’s shoulders, can never be left in the past, but will feel lighter in time.
I am struck by the originality of these poems, by how they lead us to surprising places in the poet’s consciousness, dipping along with her between this world and the worlds of the past, and how through their writing and tender shaping show us how they might be the only peaceful way we have to reconcile the worlds we make."
Nancy Takacs, in 15 Bytes
"...for Bickmore to “get lost” means going to a place you’ve already been, not somewhere entirely strange. This space between familiar and unknown is where losing oneself is possible, and, if I may make a suggestion without elaborating at length, it is the space that the whole of literature traverses. It is the twilight of consciousness between waking and sleep, and in pieces like “Let’s Get Lost” Bickmore excels at its articulation."
Bert Fuller, Review of Ephemerist, "Resisting Interpretation," in Dialogue