Given, the debut poetry collection of Liza Katz Duncan, was the winner of the 2022 Autumn House Rising Writer Prize in Poetry. A tender collection that considers the idea of home and family, and untangles the deep personal and ecological loss as a result of Superstorm Sandy''s destruction of the New Jersey Shore.
Given is a poignant exploration of the unpredictable shifts that shape our lives. Duncan conjures her home, the New Jersey Shore, in clear and unsentimental lines: ''Call of the grackle, / whine of the turkey vulture. Blighted clams, // raw and red in their half-shells.'' Duncan’s poems also explore the devastation brought to this place and its community by Superstorm Sandy and the continued impacts of climate change.
Interwoven into this thread is the narrator’s miscarriage; the parallels between the desecrated landscape and the personal catastrophe further contribute to the layers of tenderness in this collection, as Duncan urges us to remember and to witness. Despite tragedy and loss, Given is imbued with persistent, dogged hope, showing how survival persists amongst the wreckage, and from this debris is a path towards healing our grief.