A New Hunger

by Laure-Anne Bosselaar

Overview

Beginning with a harrowing account of her childhood in a Belgian convent, where she was placed at the age of four, Laure-Anne Bosselaar shows us how early emotional and physical deprivation can be overcome by intelligence, humor, curiosity, and determination. Although many of her poems are overtly autobiographical, they are never merely personal.

Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Stephen Dunn wrote of A New Hunger: “There’s a time in the life of a poet as a maker of poems, if she or he is going to become more than just good, when the voice of one’s second self fully emerges, distilling and orchestrating the poet’s concerns, while simultaneously infusing them with an inner melody—a music that reaches and satisfies both ear and mind. This is to say that Laure-Anne Bosselaar, with her wonderful third book, A New Hunger, has become more than just good. It’s an occasion to mark and to celebrate.”

The acclaimed author of two previous collections (The Hour Between Dog and Wolf and Small Gods of Grief, which won the 2001 Isabella Stewart Gardner Prize), Laure-Anne Bosselaar grew up in Belgium, where she worked as a talk show host, commentator, and voiceover for Belgian radio and television. Fluent in four languages, she moved to the United States in 1987.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781931337328
Publisher:	Copper Canyon Press
Publication date:	04/01/2007
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	69
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.40(d)

About the Author

Laure-Anne Bosselaar grew up in Belgium where she worked as a talk-show hostess, commentator and voice-over for Belgian Radio and TV. Fluent in four languages, she moved to the U.S. in 1987 and is the author of The Hour Between Dog and Wolf, and of Small Gods of Grief, which won the 2001 Isabella Gardner Prize.

Table of Contents

Against Again: Against Again     1
The River's Mouth, The Boat, The Undertow: The River's Mouth, the Boat, the Undertow     17
Memory Mall     33
Stillbirth     35
March Chimes     36
Elegy     37
Bus Stop     38
Counted     39
Swallowing     41
Garage Sale     43
The Want for a Cloud     44
On a Bench by the Hudson     46
Man at the Museum of Modern Art     48
Birthday     30
It Had to Be You     52
Awe     54
Note Slipped Under His Door     56
At Savage River Lodge     57
Friends     60
Night     62
Notes & Acknowledgments     67

Editorial Reviews

Bosselaar's third collection (after Small Gods of Grief) presents lyric poems of uncommon beauty that are easily accessible for all readers. She writes of life in New York City, post-9/11, of selling her dead mother's bed, of a childhood where the speaker noticed nuns' faces "In wimples/ so tight the wrinkles and jowls were pushed forward/ like the skin of old fruit." The book features three sections: the first two are very long poems in sequences, and the final section is a series of short lyric poems. "The River's Mouth, the Boat, the Undertow" is a journey that begins with a small child reaching for a balloon as it sails skyward and ends with a parent grieving for her stillborn child "(Inside the blank,/ tin, sky, love-that one sparrow)." Bosselaar is a mood poet, one who paints well both inner and exterior landscapes. Only one poem pushes into the sentimental range; in "It Had to Be You," an arthritic neighbor whistles to a plant in his window, a replacement for his dead spouse. But in the other poems, Bosselaar captures and transcribes the miracles of daily life "For the kind of song/ only morning can slap on love-stained sheets." Poetry is more than telling. The poet also asks questions similar to ones a reader might ask himself: "Whose body (weight, skin, fervors of it)/ will he remember? Who was his first/ ugliness?/ What his first treason?" Highly recommended.
—Doris Lynch

Library Journal