Writing letters for the blind / Gary Fincke.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Fincke, Gary.

Language:

English

Physical Description:

ix, 82 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Columbus : Ohio State University Press, [2003]

Summary:

These poems begin in the coming-of-age moments that change us by forcing recognition of physical weakness, the power of sex, the importance of family, the presence of evil, and the prevalence of mortality. The book opens with narratives taken primarily from childhood and then, divided by long poem sequences, moves to adulthood and confrontation with the identity we acquire through close relationships and the pressures of our appetites, finally ending with what reads as a universal prayer of redemption. Writing Letters for the Blind presents the reader with visions of this world and all its beauty and sordidness, joy and disappointment. This poet reports the breaking news just in from the heart and soul, and the body as well. "My father has taught me the beatitudes of sight," Fincke tells us, always aware of what we owe to those who brought us here. He stays up through the starry darkness in the insomnia of one who feels it his duty to pay passionate attention, a poet engaged in "the basic defense of simple things."

Contents:

Dragging the Forest 3

The Beatitudes of Sight 4

The Fathers I Could See from My Room 5

What Color Did 6

The Twenty-Four Hour Day 8

The History of Sleep Deprivation 8

Labor of Love 9

Playing Sleepless 10

The Man Who Never Slept 11

The Billion Heartbeats of the Mammal 12

The Ancient Cures 13

The Numbered Days 14

Marking the Body 19

The Vanishing of Forlorn Hope 20

The Extension of the Dead 21

The Celestial Bed 22

So Use It 23

The Resurrection Manual 25

The Basic Defense of Simple Things 27

The Busy Darkness 31

What the Optometrist Said 31

Writing Letters for the Blind 31

The Era of the Vari-Vue 32

Remedies 34

Pushing the Black Thread 34

Not the Worst 35

Better, Better, Worse, Better 35

How the Optometrist Encouraged Calm 36

The Sin Diseases 39

Running Through Directions 40

The Dog Shot: November 1951 42

The Plagues in Order 43

The Leukemia Student 45

Never Again 47

The Year before My Last Child Was Born 47

Had Not 47

Smart Boy 49

Belts 50

Shaking Out the Madness 50

The Hearsay of X Rays 51

The History of Popular Dances 52

Blue Moon 53

The Pointillism of Abuse 54

Buying for the Week of Change 55

Never Again 56

Miss Hutchings Takes the Girls in Our Health Class Aside for the Lesson on Horned Women 61

The Brain Shelter 63

Child Stars 64

Distraction Therapy 66

The Piecework of Writing 67

Shorthand 67

Writing Everything 67

The Book of Numbers 68

Piecework 69

The Five-Minute Diary of Robert Shields 70

Memorizing the Dead 70

The Eidetic Champion 71

The Obsolescence of Surprise 75

The Early History of the Submarine 76

Otherwise Healthy 77

Birds-of-Paradise 78

How's It Going? 80

The Magpie Evening: A Prayer 82.

Notes:

"Winner of the 2003 The Ohio State University Press 'The journal award' in poetry."

ISBN:

0814209505

OCLC:

51886284