Sweet Gothic

The poems in Sweet Gothic weave together themes of adoption, motherhood, yearning, family, and teaching in an intricate pattern that might leave one quivering, as one reviewer attests. As the title Sweet Gothic infers, the book is filled with binaries: light and dark, life and death, lost and found, known and unknown, music and silence. The poem "In Between" suggests we all live somewhere in the middle. This poetry collection negotiates that middle ground. Like her necklace-making ancestor celebrated in the last poem of the book, Tennant strings together these images and narratives in a way that celebrates the power of art and helps us find our place in the midst of the contradictions around us.