Ex Ophidia Press, paperback
Publication Date: June 1, 2022
Publisher Marketing: Sheila Bender's new volume Since Then is a remarkable poetic account of the way a human being can transform mortal heartbreak into a sustaining love of the world. Sonically lush, elegantly imaginative, and formally diverse, the poems act as direct and indirect milestones in the life of a mother looking back on the life of a son who died decades ago. Guided by four epistolary prose poems addressed to her son, the book is alive with both her striking self-examining lyrics about him as well as more outward-looking poems about the grace of our natural environment and the enhancing particularity of things.