Late Psalm

by Betsy Sholl

Overview

Late Psalm takes themes from those ancient songs of joy and grief and transposes them into the language of contemporary life.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780299198947
Publisher:	University of Wisconsin Press
Publication date:	04/22/2004
Series:	Wisconsin Poetry Series , #4
Pages:	112
Product dimensions:	7.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Betsy Sholl is the author of five books including The Red Line and Don't Explain, 1997 winner of the Felix Pollak Prize in Poetry. She teaches English at the University of Southern Maine and poetry at Vermont College.

Table of Contents

	Acknowledgments	xi
	At the Public Market (I)	3
I
	It Would Be Better If We Didn't Talk About It	7
	Elegy with Postcard	9
	Queen of the Night	11
	Elegy with Trains	13
	Half the Music	15
	Leisure Village	18
	Design in America	20
	Back with the Quakers	22
	Photographer	24
	Homeless Encampment	26
	In a Time of Drought	28
	All Questions to Be Answered, No	30
	Sweeney at Prayer	32
	Vertical Melancholy	34
	Louder	36
	Little Elegy	38
	Shore Walk with Monk	39
	Solid Ground	41
	Boardwalk	43
	Equinox	45
	After That	47
	At the Public Market (II)	51
II
	Messengers Falling to Our Aid	55
	Here	57
	Backwash	59
	Bass Line	61
	Transition	63
	Book of Numbers	65
	The Bird Suit	69
	The Life of Keats, Spared Briefly by John Coltrane	71
	Exchange	73
	To Walt Whitman in Heaven	75
	Reading	77
	Impediments	78
	Sister	80
	Stray Horn	82
	Gospel Hour	84
	Meditation, with Other Voices	86
	Late Psalm	88
	Because We Imagine a Journey	91
	Last Boat	93
	At the Public Market (III)	97

Editorial Reviews

"Sholl's descriptive powers are amazing: 'the flesh of swordfish swirls like wood grain / around a knot' or 'A moment of silence at Soup Kitchen / for our saint of the quick grip, faking / a side stitch to hide the bottle under his coat' . . . such snap and vigor, such rueful itemizings! This book is one dizzying, painful pleasure after another, and I will read it again and again."--Lynne McMahon, author of Sentimental Standards

"Imagine how Dante would have written if he were the daughter of Thelonious Monk and Mother Jones and you might have some idea of what Betsy Sholl's Late Psalm is like--a jazzy, heartfelt, no-nonsense Divine Comedy with a social conscience."--David Jauss, author of You Are Not Here

From the Publisher