Willow room, green door : new and selected poems / Deborah Keenan.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Keenan, Deborah.

Language:

English

Physical Description:

xi, 277 pages ; 21 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Minneapolis, Minn. : Milkweed Editions, 2007.

Summary:

In her highly anticipated new collection, Deborah Keenan sifts through inanimate objects and forgotten memories in search of personal validation. Her journal-like confessions create an instant bond with the reader, yet these seemingly simple poems daringly redefine common language. Keenan skillfully twists words to suit her ends, creating a colorful, dream-like world filled with lions, paintings, wars, and mummies. Throughout, she constantly reorganizes this world in an effort to realize her place in it.

Contents:

Willow Room, Green Door

The Beauty of the Painting 3

The Exactness of the Imitation 4

The Appropriateness of the Depiction 5

Verlag Dabritz, Long Ago in Munich, Now in the Poem 6

The Game In Progress 8

Still Life with Scapegoat//Safe in the Family 9

The Complete and Undisturbed Lion Skeleton 12

Guessed "True" Answer Was "Bridge" 13

Maybe He's Grateful but Get Out of His Way 15

Kandinsky in the Hermitage 16

November 1, 2004 17

Passage from Isaiah 18

Traveling in the Realms of Gold 19

Research on the Color Red 20

It's a Book about Summer, So Cottonwoods and the Rivers Are Key 21

Angel Island and Its Meaning and Value 23

The Black Angel and Henri Coulette 25

Woman on Laurel Street Reports That Her Neighbor Has Stolen Nine Pairs of Her Shoes and Left a Pile of Honey and Flour by Her Car 27

Woman on Botticelli Street Reports the Phrase "The End Is Near" Written in Wax on Her Driveway 29

March 7, 2005 30

Stained Glass and What It Could Mean 31

Hockney's Joyful Blue and Purple Road 32

She Thought, I Am Walking Around My Country 34

Botticelli Street and Its Implications 35

Describe the Difference between Depict and Evoke 37

Nature Not Culture 38

And So It Was I Entered the Broken World 39

Tree of Life Made by an Outsider Artist 41

A Tree Is Not a Human Thing 42

Locked in Winter, Summer Lies 43

Cutter's Way: The White Horse and Lisa Eichhorn Are Clear 47

The Children's Moon in the Poem about Summer 48

XI

It's a Poem about Summer and Summer Is Over 51

Willow Room 54

Green Door 56

Household Wounds

The Drive 61

The Recluse 63

Pursuit 65

The Man Who Knew about Winter 67

This Afternoon 70

Extended Metaphors 72

The Sorceress 75

The Woman Who Knew about Winter 79

What Will Last 82

The Mother 84

The Father 86

Household Wounds 88

Mending 91

After 93

What It Is 95

The Subject 97

A Poem about White Flowers 100

July Twenty-Seventh, Nineteen Seventy-Nine 102

How I Will Know When the War Is Over 104

One Angel Then

Angel Fish New Life 109

Living with Angels 111

Space Angels 117

The Eyes to See Angels 120

The Only Window That Counts

What My Daughter Asked about the Angel in the Tree 125

Formal Presentations of Love 126

Declaration of February 128

Divorce 130

Grief 133

Belonging to God 134

Folds of White Dress/Shaft of Light 136

Be Good 138

Good Dreams or Milk 140

What He Liked He Had a Lot Of 142

The Trees 144

The Amateur 145

Admission 147

Greenland Mummy 149

Happiness

Small History 155

Alone 161

Architecture 163

The Fathers Walking Away from Houses 165

When the Dead Come to Visit in Dreams 167

Fox 169

Living 171

Burning 173

Loving Motels 176

Rogue Wave 179

Why They Belong Together 182

Comfort 184

What It Was Like Today 185

Lilacs and Hail 188

Night Walk 190

Amnesia Plague 193

How I Walk 195

Cordelia: One Portrait at a Time 199

Good Heart

What It Was Like Today: Given Over 203

Travel 204

After D.H. Lawrence 206

What It Was Like Today: Not Taking Their Place 208

The Painting of the Amaryllis 209

Aerial View of Caribou/Slow Moves in the Black-and-White Movie 211

I Knew Her Once 212

In Emerald 214

The Wind 216

Hope 217

Good Heart 222

When Men Poets You Admire and Respect Can Only Answer Sappho When Asked in Public Are There Any Women Poets They Admire 226

What It Was Like Today: Facing East 227

The Last Lion 228

His Red Chair 230

The Exchange 231

Signing My Name in the Book of the Dead 232

Gone 235

REM Channels Leonard Cohen 237

Common 239

Time and Love 241

The Park 243

Kingdoms

If You Say Luck You Can't Say God 249

Portrait of Soon 251

Two Sisters 253

The Boy I Quit For 254

July//The Right Hand Was a Medusa 256

August//No Rain 257

Blue Heron 259

The Four Goldfinches and One Scarlet Tanager 260

Small Panacea and Lucky for Us 262

Nine Mile Creek//What Was Written There 264

The Baby 265.

Notes:

Includes index.

ISBN:

9781571314260

1571314261

OCLC:

73993111

Online:

Publisher description