On looking : essays / Lia Purpura.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Purpura, Lia, 1964-

Language:

English

Physical Description:

xi, 139 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Louisville, Ky. : Sarabande Books, [2006]

Summary:

Lia Purpura's daring new book of lyric essays, On Looking, is concerned with the aesthetics and ethics of seeing. In these elegantly wrought meditations, patterns and meanings emerge from confusion, the commonplace grows strange and complex, beauty reveals its flaws, and even the most repulsive object turns gorgeous. Purpura's hand is clearly guided by poetry and behaves unpredictably, weaving together, in one lit instance, sugar eggs, binoculars, and Emerson's words: "I like the silent church before the sermon begins."

Purpura is writer-as-telescope, kaleidoscope, microscope, and mirror. As she says: "By seeing I called to things, and in turn, things called me, applied me to their sight and we became each as treasure, startling to one another, and rare." This is, indeed, a rare and startling treasure of a book.

Contents:

Autopsy Report 1

On Aesthetics 9

On Form 17

Recurrences/Concurrences 25

Brown 33

Sugar Eggs: A Reverie 35

The Pin 53

Red: An Invocation 59

The Smallest Woman in the World 63

The Space Between 69

Coming to See 75

Falling Houses: mise-en-scene 85

Glaciology 91

Spires 99

On Invisibility 103

On Praise 109

On Not Hurting a Fly: A Memorial 113

On Looking Away: A Panoramic 123.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (page 137).

ISBN:

1932511393

OCLC:

62085399