The Book of a Hundred Hands

by Cole Swensen

Overview

The hand is second only to language in defining the human being, and its constant presence makes it a ready reminder of our humanity, with all its privileges and obligations. In this dazzling collection, Cole Swensen explores the hand from any angle approachable by language and art. Her hope: to exhaust the hand as subject matter; her joy: the fact that she couldn’t.

These short poems reveal the hand from a hundred different perspectives. Incorporating sign language, drawing manuals, paintings from the 14th to the 20th century, shadow puppets, imagined histories, positions (the “hand as a boatless sail”), and professions (“the hand as window in which the panes infinitesimal”), Cole Swensen’s fine hand is “that which augments” our understanding and appreciation of “this freak wing,” this “wheel that comforts none” yet remains “a fruit the size and shape of the heart.”

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781587296475
Publisher:	University of Iowa Press
Publication date:	04/01/2005
Series:	Kuhl House Poets
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	142
File size:	236 KB

About the Author

Cole Swensen is the author of nine other books of poetry, including Such Rich Hour and Try (Iowa, 2001 and 1999). Her work has won the National Poetry Series competition, the Iowa Poetry Prize, the San Francisco State Poetry Center Award, and a Pushcart Prize, and she has been a finalist for the National Book Award. She is also a translator of contemporary French poetry, prose, and art criticism. Currently on the faculty of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, she divides her time among Iowa City, Washington, D.C., and Paris.

Table of Contents

Contents Acknowledgments One: The History of the Hand The History of the Hand The Prehistory of the Hand The Hand Thinks The Hand Defined: 1 The Hand Defined: 2 The Hand Defined: 3 Chirologia, or the Natural Language of the Hand Of an Alphabet of Steppes By the Eighteenth Century A History of the Hand The Hand as Historical A History of the Hand Two: Positions of the Hand Grasp Fan Grip Hold Sigh Juggle Traveling Glove The Mechanics of the Hand Three: Professions of the Hand Case Histories: Physical Aphasia The Hand as Lamp The Hand as Anchor The Hand that Caresses The Hand as Origami The Hand as 19th-Century Harbor The Theater of the Hand The Hand as Ideogram The Hand as Window The Hand as Mansion The Hand as Sun God The Hand Polishes Expression The Hand as Staircase The Hand as Nest The Hand as Mango Four: Representations of the Hand The Hands’ Testament The Hands Testify The Hand Painted In The Hand Sculpted The Hand Etched in Glass The Hand Sketched The Hand Photographed The Hand in Fresco Five: The Anatomy of the Hand Intro to the Palmar View The Palmar View The Palmar View, Continued Palmar 3 Fingers 1 Fingers 2 Fingers: Alignment Alignment, Continued Fingertips The Hand: Lower View: Oblique The Bevel Itself Knuckles The Thumb: Based On The Intern's Problem The Thumb, In Sum The Hand: Branching Out The Hand: Back View, Fingers Arches The Hand: Other Arches The Fist The Anatomy of Trees The Mechanics of the Hand Six: American Sign Language Signs The Manual Alphabet Understanding the Past, Present, and Future Pronouns Thinking and Feeling Flood Garden Rain Ghost (Holy) Deer Evening To Form the Simple Past The Present Perfect: To Have Sun Animal Seven: Shadow Puppets The First Movies Birds Birds Birds Advances in the Form Eight: A Manual of Gesture: Public Speaking for the Gentleman (1879) Right Hand Descending Oblique Prone Right Hand Horizontal Front Prone Right Hand Ascending Lateral Supine Right Hand Ascending Oblique Vertical Both Hands Descending Lateral Prone Nine: Paintings of Possible Hands Wilton Diptych, 1395 Fra Angelico, Cell 7, San Marco, 1438-43 Dominique Ingres, Venus at Paphos, 1852–53 Auguste Rodin, Cathedral, 1908 Marc Chagall, Self-Portrait with Seven Fingers, 1912 Marcel Duchamp, Portrait of Doctor Raymond Dumouchel, 1910 Rembrandt van Rijn, The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicholaes Tulp, detail, 1632 Norman Bluhm and Frank O’Hara, Hand, 1960 Sean Scully, Landline Sand, 1999

Editorial Reviews

The title is accurate: 100 short, smart, off-kilter poems about the human hand-its physiology, its uses, its role in history, its symbolism and the art forms that depend upon it-form Swensen's entertaining latest collection. As in previous works, Swensen (Try; Such Rich Hour) sometimes fashions poems from adapted or partially erased found texts, especially those from previous centuries. Her strongest pages, though, rely on observation and wit, taking apart ordinary syntax and context, then bringing them back again by the end of the poem. "The Hand as Origami" depicts prehistoric migration as a version of a children's game. Sections near the end of the volume devoted to American Sign Language and to shadow puppetry turn ordinary description into a set of double- and triple-meanings. Such a large set of similar short works may be more impressive dipped into than read straight through: nevertheless, these passages about palm and fingertip, tendon and thumb, are far more than five-finger exercises and could be the form that will find this poet, much admired in academia, an audience outside it. (Oct.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

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