AlwaysAlways

Always, Julia Lisella's new collection of lyric and free-verse poems, explores the transition from youth to midlife when what once seemed like impossible or impassable hurdles that might have made us feel hopeless in our twenties-war, hypocrisy, pain, illness, death, terrible grief-are full of creative possibilities for us later in life, to renew or even to reinvent. Characters emerge in Always that explore, observe, and instruct: St. Francis, a young boy, teenage girls, a mother in mid-life, husbands and wives, teachers and students, 19th century writers, and dead parents who speak from their full lives into the future.