At the Edge of the Cliff

At the Edge of the Cliff: poems, by Marian Kaplun Shapiro, experiments with visual form and edgy content to disrupt fundamental givens and generate transformative experiences. At her poetic peak, Shapiro uses word drawings that go beyond mere words to touch extremes of feeling and jar the subconscious. Shapiro makes each poem an experiment, leading a beautiful and challenging climb to the edge.


"A book of poetry and drawings that explore emotional disconnections, silences, and efforts to make contact. ...her purpose is to pursue 'extremes of feeling' and their resulting epiphanies through 'experimenting with form and content.' These experiments encompass diagrams, sketches, spacing, and unusual typography, which often focus attention on conceptual organization. ...Poems that creatively reveal the unsaid and unsayable." -Kirkus Reviews


"'If the clocks are running slow, will we have more time than we thought?' Shapiro muses. It's a riddle; an invitation without return address, a dreamscape brimming with the raw and paradoxical nature of the unconscious. Pivoting between visual poetry, free verse, and prose poetry, Shapiro, a therapist as well as poet, captures the wonder and challenge of our flawed humanity with a generous helping of grace." -Nina Corwin, LCSW; author of The Uncertainty of Maps


"Marian Shapiro asks us to ask ourselves, 'Why here? Where are we going? What time is it? What is foreground? Background?' Shapiro guides us through an amalgam of poems, lyrical, brutal and redemptive. In the midst of her pinwheel of life, six wondering clocks, and assorted graphic and sprawling cursive mind play poems, she teaches us 'inch by inch' that we need horizon, 'To weigh/ the whatness of lake/ the whoness of mountain/ the whenness of/ sky.'" -Barbara Laiolo-March, Poet, cofounder of the Surprise Valley Writers' Conference


"Joy. Terror. Sorrow. The author's familiarity with those unspoken, secret parts of ourselves brings us to that something in us that is even beyond the unconscious. This collection of poetry challenges the givens of poetic form, opening us to asking ourselves: Is there something like a spirit or soul in there? Could that be?" -Sanford Rosenzweig, Clinical Psychologist


"In her collection of poetry, The Edge of the Cliff, Marian Shapiro hammers home some vital philosophy intertwining minute details and instructive 'eurekas' to transport readers to a lost time when existence was under less threat. Shapiro also allows glimpses into grim realities in poems like 'Rape,' that, instead of hammering readers with overkill, remind us of the horrors in calm terms. Her ability to mix the vastly philosophical with the intensely personal is evidence of her mastery of form." -Doug Stuber, Editor, Poems from the Heron Clan