You Are My Joy and Pain

A collection of lyrical love poems showing Detroit s poet laureate at the peak of her career. You Are My Joy and Pain is Naomi Long Madgett's latest and possibly most endearing poetry collection. Bill Harris, a 2011 Kresge Foundation Eminent Artist, said of the book, "e;Even with the evidence of over a half-century or more of first-rate poetic artistry by Madgett, this collection is a breath-arresting surprise and delight. Poem-by-poem and section-by-section amaze. Each poem in the collection is a master class in technique and in her ability to transpose an idea into a tightly composed example of the craft of poetry."e; You Are My Joy and Pain receives its name from the Billie Holiday song "e;Don't Explain"e; and is divided into three parts. The first part, "e;A Promise of Sun,"e; contains fourteen poems relating to the hopeful and joyful beginning of a new relationship. The second part, "e;Trinity: A Dream Sequence,"e; consists of twenty poems with religious imagery and encompasses both the beginning and the end of a relationship. The third part, "e;Stormy Weather,"e; includes thirty-two poems that relate to the heartbreaking experience of a love gone wrong. These are not love poems in the abstract the richness with which Madgett writes hints at the firsthand experience of a lifetime of loving.While several anthologies of love poems exist in the world, it is rare to find a single-author collection that so closely examines love in all of its messy and beautiful layers. Readers will identify with the hope and disappointment that Madgett presents in these poems.