Storage unit for the spirit house / Maw Shein Win.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Win, Maw Shein, author.

Contributor:

Laura Jan Meyerson Poetry Fund.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

American poetry--21st century.

American poetry.

Genre:

Poetry.

poetry.

Physical Description:

102 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Oakland, California : Omnidawn Publishing, 2020.

Summary:

"With sharp focus and startling language, the poems in Maw Shein Win's second full-length book, Storage Unit for the Spirit House use physical objects to glimpse the ephemeral, the material, and the immaterial. Vinyl records, felt wolverines, a belt used to punish children, pain pills, and "show dogs with bejeweled collars" crowd into Win's real and imagined storage units. Nats, Buddhist animist deities from her family's homeland of Burma, haunt the book's six sections, as forgotten children sleep under Mylar blankets and daughters try to see through the haze of a father's cigarette smoke. The artful assemblages of both earthly and noncorporeal possessions throughout the collection become resonant and alive, and Win must summon "a circle of drums and copper bells" to appease the nats who have moved into a long-ago family house. This carefully curated collection of unlikely objects and images creates an act of ritual that uses language to interrogate how pain can transform into a nat or a siren. The minimal line length belies maximal imagination in this remarkable new book"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Spirit House (one)

ONE : Storage Unit 202 - Storage Unit 202 - Storage Unit 202 - Water Space (one) - Water Space (two) - Water Space (three) - Sky Space (one) - Sky Space (two) - Sky Space (three) - Vase (one) - Vase (two) - Vase (three)

- TWO : Spirit House (two) - Which gives the outer pair the heavy look of bronze clothes on statues - When the galley convicts clanked out of the prison in their chains - Desolation appears greater when pinpointed by light - The eye may allow some confusion - Cinema - Theater in Four Acts - Spectre Show - Theater in Three Acts - Hippodrome - Reliquary - Tomb - Tower - Halls - Storage Unit for the Spirit House

- THREE : Spirit House (three) - MRI Scan - Bone (pantoum) - Bottle - Imaging Center - Hospital - Room Tone - A State of Mind - The Soft Part of the Brain - Bone

- FOUR : Spirit House (four) - Huts - Phone Booth - Factory - Restaurant - Diorama - Shops - Eggs - The Parlors

- FIVE : Spirit House (five) - Convention Center - Office in Lovelock, Nevada - Containers - Relationship - Cave - Portal - Den

- SIX : The Cellars: A One-Act Play - Spirit House (six).

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Laura Jan Meyerson Poetry Fund.

ISBN:

9781632430861

163243086X

OCLC:

1145076502

Publisher Number:

99986102691