The Beatitudes of Ekaterina

Unable to cease their conversation that became Beso the Donkey (MSU Press, 2010), and A Hundred Million Years of Nectar Dances (Green Writers Press, 2015), Jarrette found himself addressing Ekaterina in a series of love poems after she suddenly died in 2014. Many are apostrophes, all unsentimental, sometimes harrowing, unflinching, yet full of the exotic spirit, joy, and humor, that shall always be this remarkable, noble, woman. Also fluent in Russian, Italian, Ancient Greek, and Spanish, Katya was a trauma medicine specialist who worked with Médecins Sans Frontières and other international organizations. Her medical team was forced to witness atrocities in Nigeria, perform triage, and subsequently kidnapped, unpersoned, and ransomed. The poems—lamentation, requiem, praise—are visited by her muses: Akhmatova, Tsvetayeva, Sappho, Dante, Anne Carson, Giacometti, and Charlie Chaplin. The book is an unblinking, breathing, monument to love, to the other, a psalm of living fully alive on a planet under seige, and further investigation into the mystery itself which is Jarrette’s life’s work.

Richard Jarrette

Richard Jarrette is author of Beso the Donkey (Michigan State University Press, 2010)—Gold Medal winner for Poetry Midwest Independent Publishers Association 2011, A Hundred Million Years of Nectar Dances (Green Writers Press, 2015), The Beatitudes of Ekaterina (Green Writers Press, 2017). He is Poetry Columnist for VOICE Magazine of Santa Barbara and his books have been endorsed by W.S.Merwin, Jane Hirshfield, Joseph Stroud, Sam Hamill, and others. He lives semi-reclusively in the Central Coast area of California and is far into his next poetry collection, It Is Never Finished, inspired by the ancient Chinese poets who named names, praised, and preserved.