Patricia Traxler

Forbidden Words

From the Publisher:

"In her third poetry collection, Traxler examines the overt and hidden forces of language, including the power and weight of the unspoken and the relationship of women to language—how they may absorb power from it or use it as a refuge, how muteness can be a language in itself."


Some reviews of Forbidden Words:

“Gorgeous writing, and devastating... Patricia Traxler has done crucial work here: rigorous, faithful, tragic, hopeful, true.”
–Marie Howe, The Boston Review


“Forbidden Words is an outstanding and enviable performance.”
–Ted Kooser, The Laurel Review


“The writer's dramatic sense and the controlled elegance of her language ironically counterpose the poetry's intense emotional substratum...These poems strike a thrilling balance between personal disclosure and the rigors of writing.”
—Publishers Weekly


“Forbidden Words is an intelligent, careful work by a gifted and generous poet.”
–Karen Volkman, The Harvard Review



To order Forbidden Words, see sidebar, lower right.

Selected Works

Novel
“Bloody good—a compelling and beautifully written novel.”
—Toronto Sun
“With her stunning first novel, Blood, Patricia Traxler plunges the reader into a world both familiar and eerie. Seldom have the twin obsessions of love and art been more vividly or intelligently portrayed...More than almost any other novel I've read, Blood captures the relationship between an artist and her work, a relationship that is also susceptible to jealousy and revision and love...What an elegant, suspenseful, and steamy debut.” --novelist Margot Livesey
Poetry
“These poems strike a thrilling balance between personal disclosure and the rigors of writing.”
—Publishers Weekly
"Brings to mind Walt Whitman at his best, for Traxler has written an absorbing, haunting, feminine 'Song of Myself,'" --Victor Contoski, Abraxas
"A fierce and passionate collection!" --Publishers Weekly
Selected Short Stories
Now available on Amazon's Kindle and sold as singles, award-winning short stories from Traxler's collection in process, I'll Always Love You (unless you love me, too) , which looks with an ironic and darkly humorous eye at romantic love, fidelity and infidelity, the politics of sex, the single life and marriage, and the question of when, if ever, it all begins to make sense.
Author interview
Traxler talks about dividing her writing life between poetry and fiction; about the challenges a writer faces when living in a region so far "outside the glittering current"; and about the literary influences and life experiences that have shaped her perspective as a woman and a writer.

Quick Links

To order Traxler's short stories as singles
To order Patricia Traxler's FORBIDDEN WORDS
To order Patricia Traxler's THE GLASS WOMAN
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