Description

Chaos & Calm

by Angelika Quirk

In both subject matter and style, Angelika Quirk’s new poetry book ranges far and wide—from her childhood experiences in war-torn Hamburg playing in the rubble of hollow houses, to the delights and perils of love, to the wit of the latest offerings in imagery, as in “Body Parts Galore” —souls on sale/ some lighter than air/ some thinner than sin.

We follow the lead of her lyrical voice through a dreamscape that includes Valkyries, an escape artist, a bearded monk, a Derwish dancer, a camel spitting into the sinking sun and a kleptomaniac squinting at the hologram of her elusive mind.

She writes about the inequalities of the human condition: the war in  Ukraine “Lacrimosa—Weeping”, children separated from families at the Mexican border, and refugees drowning in the Mediterranean Sea—A child’s body washes ashore./ His father clutching him./ His eyes turning east toward Mecca. The poet doesn’t just brush against the surface of things, but delves into the complexity beneath, If I could give up the fear of falling,/ of drowning, I could dive down/ into your murky depth….

Looming over this collection is a menacing past, both personal and historical: the poet surviving war and famine, hiding in bomb-shelters, yet as a teenager dancing in operas and ballets, she keeps her balance with style and verve. In her poem “They Are Dancing” her final words:

They touch the sun, then dance on ashes, practicing the graceful
ways of angels. They dance on shards of a broken world. They dance

 

Early Praise for Chaos & Calm:

Angelika Quirk’s searing poetry collection, Chaos and Calm, examines life’s dualities—good and bad, beauty and horror, youth and aging, living and dying, light and dark—and the complicated identities of an American immigrant born in Germany amid a ravaging war. In these poems, even the moon is “a sickle about to slice the world in two,” as the speaker rummages in her past “collecting splinters from exploded / flak shells like shooting stars / from ashen skies.” These poems bear beautiful witness to history’s ugliness while also celebrating the soaring compensations of love, art, and literature, of choosing to passionately live despite everything. In poem after poem, from “ditches of the dead, from windows in rubbled / houses, and from hospital beds,” the troubled world’s brilliant, aching voice sings.

—Francesca Bell, Poet Laureate of Marin County

Chaos and Calm awes me with its exquisite vastness, the way it distills the scope of history into the intimacy of a life. A life that begins in the aftermath of World War II, in a German city “bulldozed into rubble,” in a “world of angst and becoming all knotted together.” Restless, these poems excavate the ruins of war and childhood, crisscross the Atlantic, hopscotch the “Babylonian glitter” of famed cities. Yet ruminative, these poems also know how to linger, capturing “fleeting moments” and holding hard-won truths up to the light. Quirk is a poet who can describe the horrors and beauties of our world with stark precision, yet also spirit us through the reflective corridors of mind and soul with a surrealist’s associative logic and a ballerina’s lyric pirouettes. This is a collection to let yourself get lost in, to find a home in.

—Erin Rodoni, author of And if the Woods Carry

About the Author

Angelika Quirk was born and raised in Hamburg, Germany. Her poetry is influenced by German culture and the angst of post-World War II experiences. At the age of 18 she immigrated to the United States. She graduated from U.C. Berkely with a BA in German Literature. Her poetry has appeared in various literary magazines including N.Y. Quarterly, California Quarterly, TRANS-LIT2 and Marin Poetry Center’s Anthologies. She was a member of the Marin Poetry Center for six years in charge of the High School Poetry Program. Two of her poetry books, “After Sirens,” “Of Ruins and Rumors,” and her memoir “Kriegskinder” are in the library of the German American Heritage Museum in Wahington D. C. Her poem, “Vom Vergänglichen” recently won the SCALG Lyrik-Preis, 2023.

In a former life, she danced in “Totentanz” at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco and was on the record album cover of the “Schlagerparade 1968” (Hit Parade 1968) in Germany. A lover of music, collector of words in English and German, she now writes poems about life and living. Her Leitmotif: to instill emotions and passions from the surreal to the sublime, from chaos to rhythm to rhyme.

Find her at facebook.com/angelika.quirk