Three Vanities is a collection of poems about three women in my family: my grandmother, my mother and myself. It was published in 2009 by Pudding House, and is now available only through the author. Only $10 plus $2.50 shipping through Paypal:
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Lori Desrosiers
P.O. Box 368
Westfield, MA 01085
Praise for Three Vanities:
“Lori Desrosiers' Three Vanities is a deftly crafted chronicle of the many ways women define and redefine family. With a tender reverence for the past, these poems offer both unflinching insight and a sentimental look at the ties by which we are bound.”
- Patricia Smith
"Lori Desrosiers’ first book, novelistic in scope, chronicles the lives of three generations of women struggling to find peace and prosperity in America. They are heroic figures, but not heroic in the epic sense. The poet explores how these women cope in their daily lives with aging, love, loss and failed expectations. They do what they must to survive and protect their children.
Three Vanities reveals the love between the women while also revealing the difficult road toward independence each woman must follow. Lori’s best poems are like snapshots, capturing the emotion and mood in a fleeting instant, and as in a David Ignatow poem each fleeting instant suggests something of the whole life and shakes the reader with its sudden intense light. The strength of the poems is in the details and the clarity of the language, and the love, tenderness and compassion with which she portrays her heroines."
- Jeff Friedman
REVIEW of Three Vanities by Fiddler Crab Review: http://fiddlercrabreview.blogspot.com/
Sample Poem
Red Lipstick
smeared on
clenched lips.
Long tapered fingers,
pale white hands
shook, rattling teacups.
garish on
sagging cheeks
Earlobes sagged
from heavy earrings
worn all day,
even at breakfast.
She didn’t tell
until her last week:
she was ten years older
than my grandfather,
in fact had been lying
for fifty years.
Lori Desrosiers, Three Vanities p. 7
About the Author
Lori Desrosiers grew up on the banks of the Hudson River in NY, but now calls Westfield, Massachusetts her home. Her poetry has been published in BigCityLit, The Equinox, Blue Fifth Review, Ballard Street Poetry Journal, November 3rd Club, Common Ground Review, Gold Wake Press’ five-poem mini-chapbook series and Silkworm. She is the Editor of Naugatuck River Review, a journal of modern narrative poetry, and also publishes Poetry News, an online newsletter of poetry-related events in the CT/Mass. region. She teaches English Composition at Westfield State College. Lori earned her M.F.A. in Creative Writing/Poetry from New England College
