In this astounding second collection, Ioanna Carlsen presents us with visions of breath, both ecstatic and mundane—at once spoken, quoted, and listened for—examining the air shared by all. It is breathing that connects us, the poet knows, and she crosses dimensional and existential bounds to prove this connection.
Praise for Breather
“It is the soul of Breather that I love, its deep thinking & feeling & searching & humility, the way the poet proceeds as just another human, always leaving room for the thoughts & feelings of other humans breathing alongside her.”
“Ioanna Carlsen situates herself on the borderline between noumenal and phenomenal (if there could ever be such a place). She attempts no answers, but instead finds surprising contours for the almost inexpressible. She declares beautiful truths, like ‘seeing is forgetting the name of what is seen…’ Nuanced, shadowy, alert to metaphysical paradox, Carlsen’s poems are like that shimmer glimpsed up ahead on the highway that we never quite reach, but that keeps drawing us forward”
About the Author
Ioanna Carlsen’s poems and stories have appeared in Agni, Poetry, Field, Alaska Quarterly Review, Hudson Review, Prairie Schooner, Ploughshares, Beloit Poetry Journal, Poetry Daily, and Glimmer Train, among others.
