Using the quietly powerful and tragic character Ophelia from Shakespeare’s Hamlet as a touchstone for a sprawling collection of new poems, established poet Carole Glasser Langille has given readers her most refined and vital work to date. Traditionally viewed as a deeply troubled character with large impact and little voice, here Ophelia is revealed as naturally multifarious, and readers are invited to bask in the once-culverted streams of her rushing identity. The supposed, the remembered, the hypothetical, the imagined, the hoped for—float gloriously to the surface and are revealed to be as essential as the weighty truth that once held them under. Of course, it is not only Ophelia who emerges from the tunnel sparkling with change, the poet finds spare coinage in the pockets of old costumes, and the readers’ visions shift in welcomed parallax. This is a rare, all-encompassing read with innumerable points of entry.
This article appears in Jul 18-24, 2013.