TESS TAYLOR, THE AUTHOR OF RIFT ZONE, SHARES FIVE BOOKS IN HER LIFE
April 21, 2020 By Jane Ciabattari
Seamus Heaney wrote this rich book about place and belonging in the late 60s and early 70s, as the sectarian violence of the Troubles was breaking out all over Northern Ireland, where he then lived. Strangely, he also finished some of the poems during a sabbatical in Berkeley. These are poems for home dialect, home place, but also for trying to find a way, in a violent time, to take a long view. In Rift Zone, when I name geologic time or deep California history, I’m trying to help us stay connected to something bigger than the present moment.