Antrim House is pleased to announce the publication of Eileen Kostiner’s New & Selected Poems, The Way the Spirit Lies. About the book, Kostiner’s second, Alexander Taylor has said, “These are courageous poems about love and family, and about joy and loss. Eileen Kostiner explores the ambiguity of relationships and ends her volume with achingly poignant verses on the death of her husband. Simultaneously tender and tough, these poems will speak to every reader who values depth and honesty.”

In commenting on Kostiner’s chapbook, Love’s Other Faces, Joan Joffe Hall has praised her for “slamming the doors on sentimentality” and giving no quarter: “Death, marriage, mothers, sons: beware her tread, for even when she loves she wears pointed heels.” Since the chapbook appeared in 1982, Kostiner’s work has deepened. She has responded to life’s increasing complexity with new poems rich in reference to the Old Testament, replete with love and compassion. One of these is:

KEENING

As Father lay dying
I climbed onto his white bed
and covered his face with my hair.
Animals hide to die.
To shield him from the light
he had always shut out
I covered his face with my hair.
Only hair was soft enough
to close his eyes.

Eileen Kostiner was born in 1938. She attended Tufts University and Harvard Business School. After working as a portfolio analyst on Wall Street, she followed her professor-husband to Ithaca, New York, then to Storrs, Connecticut, where they raised two sons. She began writing in her thirty-eighth year when the Women’s Movement encouraged her to speak in her own voice. In 1982 Curbstone Press published her chapbook Love’s Other Faces, which was chosen by the United States Information Agency to be part of the international exhibit “Woman in the Modern World.” The book is available in Turkish on the internet. Eileen Kostiner’s work is anthologized in Poetry Like Bread (Curbstone Press) and has appeared in many journals. For several years she presented readings under the auspices of the Connecticut Commission on the Arts.

BOOK STATISTICS

ISBN: 0-9662783-9-9
Length: 88 pages
Binding: 5.5" x 8.5" perfect bound