What If the Invader Is Beautiful? - Paperback

by Louise Mathias (Author)

What if the Invader is Beautiful explores the ineffable yet primal connections between outer and inner landscapes -- the impact that the natural world has on the psychological terrain of our interior lives. Through compressed, musical, and often deeply mysterious language, the poems enact the extreme outer limits of emotional experience. Often set in equally extreme natural settings, the poems ride the knife edge between beauty and terror -- exploring concepts of the sublime, the spiritual power of the elements, the redemptive beauty of flora and fauna, and the psychological freedom of wide-open spaces -- and illuminate how deepening our connection to these elements is ultimately what will save us from our human afflictions of separation, isolation, and fear.

Author Biography

Louise Mathias was born in Bedford, England, and grew up in England and Los Angeles. She is the author of two full-length collections of poetry, Lark Apprentice (Winner of the New Issues Poetry Prize) and The Traps (Four Way Books), as well as a chapbook, Above All Else, the Trembling Resembles a Forest, which won the Burnside Review Chapbook Contest. For the past fifteen years, she has resided in Joshua Tree, California.