Lichen Bright

The poems in Lichen Bright follow the protagonist into a spare, stripped down, emotionally bereft relationship, and document both the witch-haunted darkness that human relationships can spawn, and the persistently creative bedrock grasp with which the mind resists the lure of the witches. The poems are thoughtful, subtle, and emotionally charged, but not sentimental. Nor do they bog down in their emotion—there is a powerful forward movement to the collection; the narrator has somewhere to get to. But neither is Carter a poet who is swept away on the current of her emotion; there is a craftedness to the collection which displays thoughtful reflection, consideration, and re-consideration. Such movement reflects Lauren’s interest in travel writing.