A doll for throwing : poems / Mary Jo Bang.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Bang, Mary Jo, author.

Standardized Title:

Poems. Selections

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

American poetry--21st century.

American poetry.

Genre:

Poetry.

Physical Description:

76 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Minneapolis, Minnesota : Graywolf Press, [2017]

Summary:

"A Doll for Throwing takes its title from the Bauhaus artist Alma Siedhoff-Buscher's Wurfpuppe, a flexible and durable woven doll that, if thrown, would land with grace. A ventriloquist is also said to "throw" her voice into a doll that rests on the knee. Mary Jo Bang's prose poems in this fascinating book create a speaker who had been a part of the Bauhaus school in Germany a century ago and who had also seen the school's collapse when it was shut by the Nazis in 1933. Since this speaker is not a person but only a construct, she is also equally alive in the present and gives voice to the conditions of both time periods: nostalgia, xenophobia, and political extremism. The life of the Bauhaus photographer Lucia Moholy echoes across these poems--the end of her marriage, the loss of her negatives, and her effort to continue to make work and be known for having made it"--Amazon.com.

Contents:

A Model of a Machine 3

Of Mannequins and Building Exteriors 4

Self-Portrait as a Photograph of a Platter 5

Self-Portrait with Others 6

The Chess Set ON A Table between Two Chairs 7

One Glass Negative 8

Dwelling in Our Time 9

Two Nudes 10

Still Life with Glasses 11

On the Balcony of the Building 12

The Mirror 13

Admission 14

News of the Day 15

A Numbered Graph that Shows How Each Part of the Body Would Fit into a Chair 16

The Human Figure in a Dress 17

The Silk and Velvet Café 18

Our Game. Our Party. Our Work. 19

Portrait in the Form of Ephemera 20

Photograph Printed with Hatch-Marks or Lines across the Portrait 21

Self-Portrait in the Bathroom Mirror 22

In the Barren behind the Master's House 23

In this Photograph I Am Untitled 24

The Doll Song 25

Stairway, Seaside 26

The Game of Roles 27

Fragment of a Bride 28

Gesture Dance Diagram 29

In the Street 30

The Head of a Dancer 31

The Transformation Anxiety Dream 32

The Bracelet 33

A Ballet Based on the Number Three 34

The Shattered Marriage 35

Me, a Chronicle 36

The Possessive Form 37

The Illusion of Physicality 38

The Scurrying White Mice Disappear 39

Things to Come 40

You Have to be Uncompromising as You Pass Through 41

She He at the Flower Basket 42

Long-Exposure Photograph of a Man 43

Portrait as Self-Portrait 44

Last Name First First Name Last 45

The Photographer, Berlin 46

The New Objectivity 47

The Icon in the Hands of the Enemy 48

One Photograph of a Rooftop 49

Masters' Houses 51

Tomb in Three Parts 52

The Expression of Emotions 53

Mask Photo 54

An Anatomical Study 56

The Missing Negatives 57

In November We Inched Closer 58

Having Both the present and Future in Mind 59.

ISBN:

1555977812

9781555977818

OCLC:

957022434