No Way Out but Through

A poet of poise and power. No Way Out but Through, Schwartz's third collection of poems, showcases some of this writer's many strengths. She's a stubborn anti-sentimentalist who can write wrenching elegies. She's an archivist of memories, a celebrant for the forgotten or nearly forgotten, who also writes eloquently of the undertow of oblivion. She's an anthologist of anxiety dreams. Irritated by Cordelia and partial to the Fisherman's Wife, she's a contrarian reader. At all times, Schwartz's poetic voice is piercingly honest. Her tough-minded intelligence leaves plenty of room for questions and regrets.

* LA Review of Books *

One marvels at the force of seeing in Schwartz's No Way Out But Through and cannot help but feel a particular gratitude for her abundant humor. Go all in with these poems; you'll reap unknown rewards. She possesses a quick-witted imagination that sanctifies memories and makes room for the wondrous nature of our cosmopolitan lights.

* Major Jackson *

Can mournfulness be wry? Can irony be heartfelt? Yes, when the writer is as insightful as Lynne Sharon Schwartz, her voice urgent with life even as she speaks about death. From Veronica Lake to her old boyfriends to lost family members, a whole peopled world is created for us here, at the intersection of memory and dream.

* Linda Pastan *

From dreams uncannily composed of real life oddities to sharply etched memories of a New York consumed by change and stark encounters of family deaths and portraits of enduring presences—Lynne Sharon Schwartz has given us a collection of lithe poems empowered by fierce attention, honesty, and ruefulness. These poems have the immediacy and poignance of the best photographs, clear, haunting, trustworthy. A book to read—and then keep near to return to again.

* Patricia Ham