When the Heart Needs a Stunt Double : Poems / by Diane DeCillis.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Decillis, Diane, author.

Series:

Made in Michigan writers series

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

American poetry--21st century.

American poetry.

Genre:

Poetry.

Physical Description:

ix, 100 pages ; 23 cm.

Place of Publication:

Detroit, Michigan: Wayne State University Press, [2021]

Summary:

Who wouldn't want a metaphorical stunt double to take the perilous fall that comes with the pain of loss or profound disappointment? The poems in When the Heart Needs a Stunt Double by Diane DeCillis consider resourceful ways in which we become our own stunt double and explore through a poet's eyes the anatomy of the mind, body, and soul. Although many of these poems investigate loss and heartbreak, this book is not about being a victim. It's about how we not only survive our most challenging moments but how we thrive in spite of them. These are poems about all of the ways our hearts both help us and betray us during major life events: dealing with divorce, the death of a loved one, separation from those closest to you, or with the agonizing experience of memory loss. The speaker appreciatively observes "how hard the muscle has worked / lifting and lowering the weight of love and sorrow." DeCillis writes that loss can feel like your heart is limping "like a wounded animal / before you sink into the shelter of your own shadow." But with every loss in these poems comes rebirth-a beautiful, sensory-rich wildflower garden of new breaths and experiences. The character of the heart is depicted as a piece of human anatomy at the same time it's portrayed as its own world; an entire planet. DeCillis personifies the mitral, aortic, and pulmonary valves, describing our bodies as blooming with vegetation, a recursive image of living things thriving inside living things. When the Heart Needs a Stunt Double takes us on a journey of what it means to be fully human. It touches upon the gifts we find in humor, nature, art, food, and how we celebrate the beauty of our scars. These are love poems: to others, to the self, to the body. DeCillis makes it clear that wounds need attention and care, but that loss always strengthens us. This collection will be admired by poetry lovers of all kinds, and those who enjoy modern and corporeal love poems.

Contents:

Machine generated contents note: I

The Philosophical Nature of Peeps

An Unkindness of Ravens

When the Heart Needs a Stunt Double

My Drowned Lover's Soul Inhabits My Dog

Close

Refugee

You Say the Kitchen Is Your Country

Figaro Speaks

Palm Reading Detroit

The Fist on Jefferson Avenue Meets Isaac Newton

My Mother Cuts Me Open and Finds an Apple Inside

Anatomy Lessons

Planetary Biology at Beaumont Hospital

Anesthesia Awareness

Ya'aburnee

Excuses for Not Falling in Love

My Eyes Find the Face of the Person I Love and Pull Out Their Fork and Knife

Neruda in My Kitchen

The Strange Fate of Falling into a Black Hole

II

In the Garden of the Universe

I Feel Like I Sprained My Damn Heart"

Extirpation

Heartbreak Number One

Tatterdemalion

Snow Falls Off Bare Branch

The Artof Kintsugi

What Saves Her

The Girl from Ipanema Visits Detroit, 1964

Instructions for the Aspiring Rock Star, Circa 1894

Wild Spirit

Pareidolia Speaks

Electric Metamorphosis

Three Stages of Abandonment

Open Heart Surgery

Saudade

A Taste for Duende

Guilt Masquerades as Pleasure at the Venetian Ball of Sweets

Sex, Guilt, and Counter Espionage, Sinatra Style

Solving for X

My Grandfather My Madame X

My Colosseum

Military Secrets

Dream Where I Find My Roof

Another Dream About Not Having Children

La Familia

III

The Cinematic Nature of Nightmares

Swamped

How to Make Horror Films

Dementia Walks into a Bar

Art Critic Robert Hughes Finally Writes About Goya

The Man Who Lost His Words

In the Company of Sufferers

All Day I've Been Trying to Convince Myself

Ass

Pulp Sugar in the Voice of Captain Friday

Opera Buffa

Bone Bone Frisson

Man and Flambe

The Home Shopping Network Waxes Poetic

Pimping the Faltering No

Decathect

Self-Portrait as Autopsy

Crush

The Gift

Agnostic

How Much Freedom Do You Give the Fly You Caught for a Pet?

Doubling the Entendre.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN:

0814348327

9780814348321

OCLC:

1200197970