Sky the Oar

As Fady Joudah states in his praise for Stacy R. Nigliazzo, “[The] many arresting poems in Sky the Oar row us through many life and death narratives, through the medical gaze: American in their specificity, universal in their compassion.” These brief, lyric poems by emergency room nurse Nigliazzo strip story down to the essential words, speaking volumes in less than a breath. In three erasure poems, she tells the story of a friend’s murder in words buried within a news article. Kevin Prufer adds, “Stacy R. Nigliazzo writes of sickness, pain, love and beauty with enormous precision and skill. The result is one of the most moving poetry books I have read in years.”