[05/10/26] Vollmer, Judith: The Pavese Stone

Alice James Books, paperback

Publication Date: May 10, 2026

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Inspired by the legacy of Cesare Pavese, Judith Vollmer's The Pavese Stone unfolds across the Italian countryside and burrows deep into the interior landscapes of memory, mortality, and connection. This is a vivid, haunting, and intimate meditation on the porous boundary between life and death, the longing for communion, the brutality of reality, and the quiet grace that resides within it.

In these pages, fortitude, elegy, and quiet dignity are interwoven with a profound desire for expansion. Vollmer's poems offer a sharp attentiveness to the textures of daily life, remaining firmly grounded in the physical world even as the speaker questions the soul's place within it. This is a book of deep listening and keen observation, where even the smallest gesture--such as severing the leather cords of a tethered owl--becomes an act of radical grace. The Pavese Stone reminds us of the power in meeting another's gaze and truly witnessing.

Near the end, Vollmer invites the reader to embrace and celebrate the ceremony of what one might even consider an unceremonious life: "Here is a ring I would slide onto your finger, / a plain thread." The poems of The Pavese Stone find their beauty in the ordinary, elevating moments of stillness and loss into sacred space.