Sign-In
Cart
Lye: Poems
Paperback
Publisher Price: $21.00
ISBN13: 9781594982194
Publisher: Fernwood Press
Published: May 5 2026
Pages: 120
Weight: 0.30
Height: 0.30 Width: 5.50 Depth: 8.50
Language: English
Lye poetically and thematically follows the ingredients of soap making-ash, water, and oil-to explore how one might wash their hands of a messy and traumatic past. If ash represents the frail damage after fire has its way, and if water represents the emotional response thereafter, then these elements would combine only to create lye: a stinging, caustic compound that reminds too much of the original flame. Yet this is exactly how generational trauma continues-a cycle of burning and burning.
It would seem the final and often-missing ingredient to transform lye into something cleansing is nothing but oil: softness and levity. How might we caress such a soothing balm onto our rawest wounds? How might we turn the endless cycle of reactivity into something new, fresh, and fragrant? Lye doesn't balk in its offering of candor, poetry, and memory as it suggests its answer to these important questions.
Also in
General Poetry
Dante's Vita Nuova, New Edition: A Translation and an Essay
Pitavy, Francois
Alighieri, Dante
Paperback
Autobiography of Red: A Novel in Verse (by the Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature)
Carson, Anne
Paperback
The Beauty of the Husband: A Fictional Essay in 29 Tangos (by the Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature)
Carson, Anne
Paperback
Decreation: Poetry, Essays, Opera (by the Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature)
Carson, Anne
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
Le Guin, Ursula K.
Lao Tzu
Paperback
A Bowl of Goodness: Nourishing Poems with a Side of Soup, Celebrating Community, Friendship, and Resilience
Jackson, Major
Hardcover
Ariel: The Restored Edition: A Facsimile of Plath's Manuscript, Reinstating Her Original Selection and Arrangement
Plath, Sylvia
Paperback