Magnified
Magnified by Minnie Bruce Pratt, published by Wesleyan University Press on March 2, 2021, is a collection of love poems that explores the profound themes of death, grief, and loss. In this 88-page edition, Pratt, a poet and activist, reflects on her experiences as her beloved faces grave illness. Through daily walks and writing, she seeks to navigate a world marked by injustice and sorrow, capturing fleeting moments of beauty amidst the pain.
Readers will find that each poem serves as a lens to magnify the small, often overlooked details that illuminate the human experience. Pratt’s work delves into the intimate spaces of memory and the body, inviting those who have faced similar losses to connect with her reflections. The collection also intertwines personal memoir with broader themes of love and political consciousness, suggesting that the act of being present in the face of loss can be a revolutionary gesture. This edition presents a poignant exploration of love’s enduring power, even in the shadow of death.
Official synopsis Publisher
Once in a blue moon, a love like this comes along
This collection of love poems draws us into the sacred liminal space that surrounds death. With her beloved gravely ill, poet and activist Minnie Bruce Pratt turns to daily walks and writing to find a way to go on in a world where injustice brings so much loss and death. Each poem is a pocket lens “to swivel out and magnify” the beauty in “the little glints, insignificant” that catch her eye: “The first flowers, smaller than this s.” She also chronicles the quiet rooms of “pain and the body’s memory,” bringing the reader carefully into moments that will be familiar to anyone who has suffered similar loss. Even as she asks, “What’s the use of poetry? Not one word comes back to talk me out of pain,” the book delivers a vision of love that is boldly political and laced with a tumultuous hope that promises: “Revolution is bigger than both of us, revolution is a science that infers the future presence of us.” This lucid poetry is a testimony to the radical act of being present and offers this balm: that the generative power of love continues after death.
Oh Death
Someone sang, Oh death! Oh death! Won’t you
pass me over for another day? Someone said, I
dreamed of you last night. I dreamed you
were telling me your whole life story.
Whole. Whorled. Welkin, winkle, wrinkle.
The loop of time holds us all together.
The pile of laundry on the bed. You
folding socks one inside the other. We
have had this day, and now this night.
The clothes are put away, and from the bed we see
the moon folding light into darkness, not death.
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