Gravida

The lyrics in Sue Standing’s False Horizon quietly celebrate the lust that is living, the lust that is memory. “The risks we're taking aren’t really risks/ Orange trees. Umbrella Pines. Wisteria.” These poems, some of which are set in the far reaches of Africa and India, argue for the primacy of the present tense, a present tense that shines erotically out from under the beautiful drapery of a manifold rich and cultural world history. Therefore, False Horizons is a book full of sensations. And yet the world remains elusive and mysterious. “In the moonlight I can see the shadow of a tree that is no longer there.” Standing writes a wonderfully understated poetry about the intimacies of experience. She says, “I need a life that won’t diminish.”