Otherwise unseeable / Betsy Sholl.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Sholl, Betsy, author.

Series:

Four Lakes poetry series

Four lakes poetry series

Standardized Title:

Poems. Selections

Language:

English

Genre:

Poetry.

Physical Description:

x, 78 pages ; 23 cm.

Place of Publication:

Madison, Wisconsin : The University of Wisconsin Press, [2014]

Summary:

What If ruin is a good thing? What if each day is built on the ruin of the one before? What if all our attempts to avoid ruin only make us bitter or closed off from what's around us? What if only by exploring our ruins do we become human? The poems in Otherwise Unseeable examine such questions. It is a poetry full of music and surprise, in voices that are personal, invented, and historical, sometimes belonging to the poet and sometimes to others. Betsy Sholl probes what there is still to learn from the devastations of the twentieth century, and she explores the roots of human envy, greed, and generosity in lively, unexpected ways, enacting the kinds of arguments we have with ourselves: between control and relinquishment, grief and ecstasy, regret and acceptance, faith and skepticism. The end result is a book of verbal wrestling, a girl-Jacob mixing it up with one kind of angel or another, limping for sure, but still blessed. Book jacket.

Contents:

I

Genealogy 3

Poco a Poco 4

Rumpelstiltskin 5

Still Life with Light Bulb 7

The Wind and the Clock 8

Frog to Princess 10

The Woodcutter 11

Wildflowers 13

Alms 14

Rush Hour 15

Atlantic City, Midmorning 17

Tidal 18

The Clam Diggers 19

Rahsaan 20

Bird Lives 21

The Argument 22

II

What's Left of Heaven 27

Goldfinch 29

Russian Bells 30

The Harrowing 31

Prisoner Bonhoeffer 34

An Exchange 36

Latcho Drom 38

Of the Many 40

Sacred Heart 41

Double Portrait 43

U.S. Clamps Down on Pianos to Cuba 44

Second Line 46

Vanishing Act 47

III

Elegy with Morning Glories 51

Belmullet 53

Famine 55

Waiting Room 56

Wood Shedding 57

Shrines 58

At the Window 61

Bass Flute 63

Cedar Waxwings 64

Meenala, County Donegal 66

Traps and Groove 67

Out of Nowhere 69

Election Day 71

To a Plum 73

Pears, Unstolen 74

The Aging Singer 76.

ISBN:

9780299299347

0299299341

OCLC:

858159382