Tropic of squalor : poems / Mary Karr.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Karr, Mary, author.

Standardized Title:

Poems. Selections

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

American poetry--20th century.

American poetry.

Genre:

Poetry.

Physical Description:

xiv, 75 pages ; 22 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

New York : Harper, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, [2018]

Summary:

"Long before she earned accolades for her genre-defining memoirs, Mary Karr was winning poetry prizes. Now the beloved author returns with a collection of bracing poems as visceral and deeply felt and hilarious as her memoirs. In Tropic of Squalor, Karr dares to address the numinous--that mystery some of us hope towards in secret, or maybe dare to pray to. The "squalor" of meaninglessness that every thoughtful person wrestles with sits at the core of human suffering, and Karr renders it with power--illness, death, love's agonized disappointments. Her brazen verse calls us out of our psychic swamplands and into that hard-won awareness of the divine hiding in the small moments that make us human. In a single poem she can generate tears, horror, empathy, laughter, and peace. She never preaches. But whether you're an adamant atheist, a pilgrim, or skeptically curious, these poems will urge you to find an inner light in the most baffling hours of darkness." --Page [2] of cover.

Contents:

The organ donor's driver's license has a black check

Loony bin basketball

The burning girl

Illiterate progenitor

Read these

Discomfort food for the unwhole

The devil's delusion

Dear Oklahoma teen smashed on Reservation Road

The age of criticism

Exurbia

Lord, I was faithless

Suicide's note: An annual

The awakening (after Milosz)

How God speaks

Face down

The child abuse tour

The less Holy Bible : I. Genesis: animal planet

II. Numbers: poison profundis

III. Leviticus: in dreams begin responsibilities

IV. Exodus: bolt action

V. Chronicles: Hell's kitchen

VI. Wisdom: the voice of God

VII. Judges: awe and disorder

VIII. Obadiah: a perfect mess

IX. Ecclesiastes: amok run

X. Psalms: Carnegie Hall rush seats

XI. Hey Jude: prophetic interlude by the ghost of Walt Whitman

XII. Malachi: truckload of nails

XIII. Hebrews: the mogul

XIV. Lamentations: the more deceived

XV. Kings: the obscenity prayer

XVI. Marks and Johns: the Blessed Mother complains to the Lord her God about the abundance of brokenness she receives

XVII. Acts: the Like button

XVIII. Petering: recuperation from the sunk love under the aegis of Christ and Isaac Babel

XIX. Philemon: notes from the underground

XX. Revelation: the messenger

Coda toward the New New Covenant: Death sentence.

ISBN:

9780062699824

0062699822

OCLC:

1000375920