Sign-In
Cart
Lost in the Bardo
Paperback
Publisher: Kelsay Books
Published: Apr 3 2026
Pages: 68
Weight: 0.23
Height: 0.14 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
I don't know of another book of poetry that portrays middle age with the blend of humor and deep emotion that distinguishes Carloynn Kingyens' Lost in the Bardo. In vivid high res, these poems combine spiky wit and acute observation with the vulnerable openness of a voice forever searching. Contemporary poetry is larger and more alive for this superb collection.
-Peter Campion, author, One Summer Evening at the Falls, El Dorado, and Other People
Unembellished and heart-searing, Carolynn Kingyens' Lost in the Bardo forms a calendar of regrets for the stun called middle age; for the feeling of already having lived all these violences, invisibilities, in-betweennesses, frantic beliefs and unknowabilities, all these hopes of hope; for how some people say you can move beyond grief's blast furnace in a predictable plot arc, leave it behind as if you were walking out of a bad blockbuster, but how it really just keeps crowding you up at the very moments you think you might, just might, finally have found something like release.
-Lance Olsen, author, Absolute Away, Always Crashing in the Same Car, and My Red Heaven
In Carolynn Kingyens' third book of poetry, Lost in the Bardo, she captures the state of transition, the limbo - as we reluctantly shed our younger selves to the vagaries of middle age and beyond. There is a wonderful yin and yang going on here between holding on and letting go. Kingyens puts a sharp, unrelenting focus on the institution of marriage, spirituality, the flush body and the sallow one, and the everlasting search for connection and love.
-Doug Holder, former Co-President, New England Poetry Club and Founder, Ibbetson Street Press
Also from
Kingyens, Carolynn
Also in
General Poetry
Dante's Vita Nuova, New Edition: A Translation and an Essay
Pitavy, Francois
Alighieri, Dante
Paperback
Sounding the Seasons Enlarged Edition: One Hundred and Ten Sonnets for the Christian Year
Guite, Malcolm
Paperback
Lao Tzu: Tao Te Ching: A Book about the Way and the Power of the Way
Lao Tzu
Le Guin, Ursula K.
Paperback
They Bloom Because of You: Poems on the Infinite Love, Growth, and Magic of Motherhood
Urlichs, Jessica
Paperback
This Is the Main Event: Discovering the Life You Long for in the Life You Have
Smith, Joshua Luke
Hardcover
Ariel: The Restored Edition: A Facsimile of Plath's Manuscript, Reinstating Her Original Selection and Arrangement
Plath, Sylvia
Paperback