Garden of Things Lost

Paula Sayword's Garden of Things Lost, contains the unspeakable beside the

ordinariness of everyday life---the profane and the sweetness of life. The poems hold the

holiness of an inner world with the details of our mundane selves. Holding these two

elements together, her words reach all of us: mothers, sisters, lovers, children (our losses

become her losses), hers, ours. The poems merge the sacred inner world of ourselves

with life's duties; the reader is left with both these worlds as we traverse her path on a

journey from one's beginning to reconciling one's limited time in this blessed life of

hers and ours. We, too, "stumble after God." We come out on the other side both

fulfilled and triumphant, a garden that continues to grow as we face loss.




Abigail Warren

author of Air-Breathing Life and Inexact Grace