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Thursday, May 27, 2021
Thursday, October 10, 2019
Roget's Illusion by Linda Bierds
Roget's Illusion by Linda Bierds
Bierds finds inspiration in the work and notes of Peter Mark Roget, most known for his expansive thesaurus.
The poems in this collection emulate Roget through not only direct quotes but what feels, from Bierd, a personal connection with the man. Ponderous and curious, the poems bring to mind images of their creator hunching in the dark, writing by candlelight, brow furrowed lightly.
The sloping language and careful attention to meter, spacing, line breaks, stanza breaks, and pacing create a mood calm and intense all at once.
The poems are sectioned into four sections, each beginning with a poem called Roget's Illusion, followed by its respective number in the series.
The poems in this collection emulate Roget through not only direct quotes but what feels, from Bierd, a personal connection with the man. Ponderous and curious, the poems bring to mind images of their creator hunching in the dark, writing by candlelight, brow furrowed lightly.
The sloping language and careful attention to meter, spacing, line breaks, stanza breaks, and pacing create a mood calm and intense all at once.
The poems are sectioned into four sections, each beginning with a poem called Roget's Illusion, followed by its respective number in the series.
The collection is concerned with what lies beneath the surface of words, of ideas, and how we make meaning from both, using one to inform the other and vice versa.
Post Subject: A Fable by Oliver de la Paz
These DEAR EMPIRE poems explore the ever-growing mechanism of empire. Each poem is addressed to the empire and begins with the phrase "These are your [blank]..." creating a shape to the free-wheeling witnessing of the empires reach.
From the publisher: https://ideaexchange.uakron.edu/uapress_publications/188/
Poems: https://poets.org/poem/dear-empire-these-are-your-temples
http://www.versedaily.org/2010/dearempire.shtml
https://therumpus.net/2011/04/national-poetry-month-day-12-dear-empire-by-oliver-de-la-paz/
From the publisher: https://ideaexchange.uakron.edu/uapress_publications/188/
Poems: https://poets.org/poem/dear-empire-these-are-your-temples
http://www.versedaily.org/2010/dearempire.shtml
https://therumpus.net/2011/04/national-poetry-month-day-12-dear-empire-by-oliver-de-la-paz/
First Hand by Linda Bierds
First Hand by Lind Bierds is a series of connected poems that tell a story of scientific and historical facts and achievements over the centuries. Her poems include characters such as Benjamin Franklin, Isaac Newton, and Gregor Mendel. The collection has three parts, along with a prologue and epilogue. A few poems are written in italics.
Buy:
Review:
Irradiated Cities by Mariko Nagai
Irradiated Cities by Mariko Nagai is a collection of
prose poems and photographs about the destruction of Hiroshima, Nagasaki and
Fukushima by nuclear weapons. The long prose poems are comprised largely of
fragments of narrative, research and voices of the victims. The dialogue is
sometimes in italics, but not always, and not always specified where it has
originated, either from documents, conversations and interviews or the
imagination of the poet. The collection traces the impact of the bombing and
resultant radiation on the area, surrounding areas, on its people and
infrastructure over time (from the bombing through the present) through medical
documents, scientific reports, personal testimony, interviews, personal
experience of the poet, news articles and other avenues. Notes for the poems are
found between the collection’s sections.
the author’s website: https://www.mariko-nagai.com/
The Last Time I Saw Amelia Earhart by Gabrielle Calvocoressi
The Last Time I Saw Amelia Earhart by Gabrielle
Calvocoressi is a collection of poems about spectacle and disappearance largely
in rural American life (specifically mining and factory towns), and, sometimes,
the queerness in these spaces. The collection begins with a series of persona
poems about the last time individuals from her town, her life, and her team saw
Amelia Earhart. The speakers include Earhart’s husband, a housewife, a school
teacher, a flight mechanic, and bystanders. Another series of poems is threaded
throughout the collection, “From the Adult Drive-in”, are also persona poems
written in the voices of the various viewers of the adult films, many of them
including lesbian encounters between actors. There are a series of poems about
a “Circus Fire, 1944” including poems in the voices of attendees, workers,
performers, the coroner, an abandoned child and even the arsonist himself. The
collection interrupts itself, here, with the poem “Backdrop” in which the poet
claims that all of these things “never existed” – not the town, the fire, the
films, even parts of the speaker themselves. The book closes with a series of
poems about the death of Margaret Fuller, a 19th Century feminist
scholar and transcendentalist, who was lost in a shipwreck off the coast of New
York – her body and the body of her husband were never recovered. There are no
notes on the research for the collection, but most of the poems are titled
using the names of their speakers and dates and locations are often provided as
well.
Read poems from the book here: https://www.theparisreview.org/poetry/462/circus-fire-1944-gabrielle-calvocoressi
the author's website: http://gabriellecalvocoressi.com/
Buffalo Dance: The Journey of York
Buffalo Dance is a collection of poems by Frank X Walker about the experiences of York as a slave and his journey to freedom.
You can buy the book here:
author's website here:
faculty page listing his "artist statement"
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