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Poetry
WINNER OF THE NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE
A haunting new book by a poet whose voice speaks of all our lifetimes Louise Glück's thirteenth book is among her most haunting. Here as in the Wild Iris there is a chorus, but the speakers are entirely human, simultaneously spectral and ancient. Winter Recipes from the Collective is chamber music, an invitation into that privileged realm small enough for the individual instrument to make itself heard, dolente, its line sustained, carried, and then taken up by the next instrument, spirited, animoso, while at the same time being large enough to contain a whole lifetime, the inconceivable gifts and losses of old age, the little princesses rattling in the back of a car, an abandoned passport, the ingredients of an invigorating winter sandwich, a sister's death, the joyful presence of the sun, its brightness measured by the darkness it casts. "Some of you will know what I mean," the poet says, by which she means, some of you will follow me. Hers is the sustaining presence, the voice containing all our lifetimes, "all the worlds, each more beautiful than the last." This magnificent book couldn't have been written by anyone else, nor could it have been written by the poet at any other time in her life.
"Full of spondaic gravity and grit." --BRUCE BOND
Showcasing the fortitude and wisdom, the honey and fire, the jab and embrace of a master poet, With Mouths Open Wide is a landmark collection of more than three decades of writing.
Including work from John Caddy's previous five books as well as new poems drawn from his experiences recovering from a stroke, the sum total of this expansive career carefully mediates the balance of outside and inside, sequentially rebuilding a delicate web of cognition, identity, and perception. From the revulsion on a child's face as Caddy's recovering body struggles to walk, to the gift of a night nurse revealing her tattoo, these poems defy consolation in their consideration of mortality. Caddy engages readers with his acerbic wit, his base profundity, his downright honesty, and a no-nonsense, take-no-prisoners attitude.
With the blinkers off, this poetic vision comprehends a fulsome picture of human, and animal, experience--a flawed and loved slideshow of the world.
I love to swim in the sea, which keeps
talking to itself
in the monotone of a vagabond
who no longer recalls
exactly how long he's been on the road.
Swimming is like prayer:
palms join and part,
join and part,
almost without end.
--from On Swimming
Aviya Kushner's debut poetry collection, Wolf Lamb Bomb, revives and reimagines the Book of Isaiah in an intimate conversation between woman and prophet. In the aftermath of September 11th, ongoing violence in the Middle East, and resurgent antisemitism, Kushner reflects on a Biblical understanding of humanity and justice. Wolf Lamb Bomb wonders equally about our relationship with an inherited past and our desire to understand the precarious present. These poems place the prophet Isaiah in the position of poet, crooner, and rival as they search for a guide in poetry and in life.
Deena Linett uses language like a dancer uses limbs, each gesture deliberate and expressive. Often set within the rocky natural landscapes of England and Scotland, Linett's poems allow small decisions the same relentless power as the forces of nature. The centerpiece of Woman Crossing a Field is a triptych, "Altarpiece," 15 poems which function as landscape paintings do, suggesting the larger flow of life as well as details of our time and place.
Deena Linett teaches at Montclair State University in New Jersey. She has published short fiction, nonfiction, two prize-winning novels, and the poetry collection, Rare Earths (BOA, 2001).