Her Portrait in Black

The past should never be forgotten. A foreign student studying in Japan becomes obsessed with the subject of a seventeenth century painting, awakening a dark curse.As a synonym for diamond, “blue rock,” promises marriage and an engagement ring. The phrase also evokes music, spanning both the blues and hard-driving rock. “Blue rock” also holds an element of fire, as in anthracite, or “hard coal,” as well as a fiery pounding, as happens with a ritual hammer-stone. Like the process of forming diamonds itself, these 80 love poems compress passion and betrayal, with results resembling fossilized ferns in bedrock as well as the protracted metamorphosis into crystalline jewels or flames.