What I’d Give Up For Wisdom, Elizabeth Rivers’ new book of poems, needs to be read more than once. On the first reading, just soak in all the felicities of language; on the second reading revel in what you missed the first time; on the next readings listen to what the poems have to teach you. They teach by example. Their attention to this world and its mysteries invites us to be equally attentive – and equally generous in our attention. This is a wise book. An honest book. A book that offers so many pleasures. Here is a poet you can trust. “Wake and accept the moon/ It brings you all it can.” Light shines through these poems. Soak that up too.
—Christopher Bursk, author of The First Inhabitants of Arcadia
Elizabeth Rivers’ new book invites us to consider the warp and weft of flesh and spirit. With both depth and levity, her poems honor loved ones gone and those remaining, nature’s flowering and dying, the challenges of aging, of confronting death, and the human’s relationship to God. In one poem, she lovingly exhorts an adult son to “Be ready” for what will come as he ages; in another, she ponders the exile from Eden, bargaining with a lonely God on His evening walk to “speak with us again,” for “we might amuse you, saying, / Now we’ll be good!” As for Death, she waves him in through the front door, abides easily with him since he lost his stranger-status; treats him as an inevitable seducer. But for now, she’ll remain in the present, thank you, contemplating, in poem after poem, the mysteries of our connection with others and with the earth in all its deaths and resurrections.
—Bernadette McBride, author of Food, Wine, and Other Essential Considerations
Make no mistake, from the first poem, this book is a delight. Rivers focuses her keen eye on three areas: aging, her faith and a backyard Eden. Precision keeps these poems honest: they pulse with vitality with nary a squeak of sentimentality. Faith is important (Rivers is married to a minister) but never intrusive. In the title poem, Rivers probes the cost of wisdom, wondering simply “Without this body/how will wisdom taste?” The poems ask many questions and offer thoughtful answers. Reader, you will not be disappointed.
—Rodger Lowenthal, poet and critic, Foxchase Review.
Elizabeth Rivers has won the Milton Dorfman Poetry prize, 1999, and the Portland Pen Poetry contest, 2000, and has been published in various magazines. Chosen as the Montgomery County Poet Laureate, PA for 2008 by Marie Howe, she is also the 2009 winner of the Robert Fraser Open Poetry competition sponsored by Bucks County Community College. Her chapbook, Colors of the Universe, was published in 2013.
Her personal passion is to celebrate poetry writing by children. She has helped sponsor youth contests in her area, published children’s poetry online, and worked with teachers and students of creative writing.
