Following her acclaimed book-length poem, Darkling (2001), this innovative examination of the Annunciation uses a collagelike, fractured narrative to explore the complex possibilities within the sacred story. Florilegium refers to a collection of excerpts from written texts and, in Latin, relates to flower gathering. The poems do form a bouquet, plucked from varying sources of truths, lies, and artistic inquisition. Rabinowitz is a highly intellectual poet with unique vision and a distinct voice. She knows the rules of poetry and breaks them beautifully, bending words and forms to her purpose. Some poems seem a tad gimmicky as they follow linguistic/mental association, but others succeed in lending a lightheartedness that demonstrates that Rabinowitz does not take herself too seriously. This does not, however, lessen her respect for her subject matter, or for her role as translator of thought or vessel through which the music passes (as Stravinsky called himself). Some readers will find Rabinowitz challenging, but all will be sent on a journey into fresh poetic and philosophical territory. --Janet St. John Copyright 2006 Booklist

Often using a series of responses, reflections, and interpretations to ancient florilegium (a collection of excerpts), Rabinowitz (Darkling) writes about the Annunciation and Mary, who says, "Though I be mute, unseen, do not be ignorant of me." The author uses text as scaffolding, creating a field of words that seems to occupy and rise above the page, a meditative texture that is ironic and transcendent. Rabinowitz also contracts with multiple choices and voices to explore the human issues, which envelop the Annunciation, and the LIGHT [that] CANNOT BE EXPLAINED. The question of Mary's being game or tool seems central to her poetic arguments. Rabinowitz portrays Mary as both maiden who submits (reluctantly? willingly?) and mother who truly anguishes over the loss of her child ("She is and remains a mother/ even though her child die") and his eventual denunciation of her. As in her previous book, Darkling, Rabinowitz seems to inscribe the past to interpret and honor it: "For the child she will have boundless love/ For posterity the memory of being/ For her life no proper translation." Recommended for contemporary poetry collections.-Karla Huston, Appleton Art Ctr., WI (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

The editor of American Letters and Commentary, Rabinowitz investigates the mysteries, myths and cultural accretions around the Virgin Mary in this third collection; Mary becomes, in these rapt and provocative poems, both a symbol of ecstatic transcendence and a focus for questions about gender and power. Drawing eclectically on forms from rhyming quatrains to e. e. cummingsesque typography, Rabinowitz reimagines the Annunciation as a "Manysplendoredmoonmottledmarvel of the metaphysical," presenting a Virgin "entrapped/ and captive," "disarmed/ by angels/ a heart unarmed/ in evernow," insisting in dramatic capitals that angelic "LIGHT NEED NOT BE EXPLAINED." She places Mary in a tradition of mystics from Pythagoras and Greek myths to Catholic saints, leavening her paeans and chants with references to skeptics such as Michel de Montaigne. Rabinowitz's technique can be extravagant, but it may be the only way to do justice to the extreme emotions and ambitions she describes: "And with her YES a future world takes shape." (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved