Imperfect present : poems / Sharon Dolin.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Dolin, Sharon, author.

Series:

Pitt Poetry

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

American poetry--21st century.

American poetry.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (97 pages)

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania : University of Pittsburgh Press, [2022]

Summary:

Imperfect Present is a book for our current moment. By confronting the urgencies of daily life, from questions of identity to sexual abuse to racial unrest to the ubiquity of plastic, these poems investigate ways to sustain ourselves in our fraught public and private lives. With her characteristic linguistic play, Sharon Dolin illuminates some of the most personal concerns that resonate throughout our culture and in ourselves, such as error, despair, uncertainty, and doubt. In sections that deploy the lens of art, the Oblique Strategies of Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt, and meditations on dreams and spirituality, Imperfect Present provides a panoply of approaches that grapple with the complexity of now.

Contents:

Intro

Contents

Make Your Home in the Imperfect Present

I: If I Told You

My Life in a Coffee Cup

If I Told You

Kafka's Hands

How Many Secrets?

Ammonite

The Pangolin

8.3 Billion Metric Tons

Ode to Chufa

Passepartout

Ode to Pubic Hair

Black Leather Backpack

The Loneliness of His Death, the Death of His Loneliness

To Wait and to Hope

How Do I Fix the World

Courage!

II: Appearances

Self-Portrait as Corncrake

Midnight in Paris

Cinquains to Pablo

At the Fountain of the Fallen Angel in Retiro Park

Cancelled Letter to Antoni Gaudí

It Takes So Little

Evening Storms

Trilogy of Doubt

Cinquains of Doubt

Innocence

Trilogy of Hands

Doubtful

Doubtful Profile

Three-Quarter View

Trilogy of Death

Trilogy of Tears and Smiles

III: Oblique Strategies

Trust in the You of Now

Turn It Upside Down

Emphasize the Flaws

Only a Part, Not the Whole

The Most Important Is Most Easily Forgotten

Give Way to Your Worst Impulse

Accretion

Not Building a Wall but Making a Brick

Do We Need Holes?

Repetition Is a Form of Change

Do Nothing for as Long as Possible

Where's the Edge?

Honor Thy Error as a Hidden Intention

Overtly Resist Change

Be Extravagant

Use Filters

Reverse

Don't Break the Silence

IV: From the Dream Notebooks

My Life as an Open Air Temple

A Dream Is One-Sixtieth Part of Prophecy

I Have Dreamt a Dream and I Do Not Know What It Is

A Good Dream Should Be Kept in Mind so It Will Be Fulfilled

There Is No Dream Without Frivolity

All Dreams Follow the Mouth

A Dream That Has Not Been Interpreted Is Like a Letter That Has Not Been Read

It May Be Spring

The Water Where I Have Not Swum

Mitzvah at Gordon Beach

To the One Who Tames

To the Ram's Horn I Cannot Sound.

Two Stones

Notes

Acknowledgments.

Notes:

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

Description based on print version record.

Other Format:

Print version: Dolin, Sharon Imperfect Present

ISBN:

9780822988878

OCLC:

1336992376