The Book of Goodbyes

by Jillian Weise

Overview

Winner of the Isabella Gardner Poetry Award The Book of Goodbyes speaks to a certain deranged love that throws into question sex, legality, gender-politics, disability, and the end of an affair. The book shifts between lyric and narrative, hyper-realism and magical realism, fact and fiction, and is organized like a play with Act I, Intermission, Act II, and Curtain Call.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781938160158
Publisher:	BOA Editions, Ltd.
Publication date:	08/19/2013
Series:	American Poets Continuum
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	88
Sales rank:	964,808
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Jillian Weise publishes fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. She is the author of The Amputee’s Guide to Sex, The Colony, and The Book of Goodbyes, winner of the Isabella Gardner Poetry Award. Her work has appeared in The Atlantic, The New York Times and Tin House. Weise has received fellowships from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, the Fulbright Program, the Sewanee Writers Conference and the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. She is an Assistant Professor at Clemson University.

Table of Contents

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments 4


One 5

Up Late and Likewise 6
The Ugly Law 7
Decent Recipe for Tilapia 11
I’ve Been Waiting All Night 12
Café Loop 13
How to Treat Flowers 16
Affairs 19
His Girlfriend Stops By 20


Intermission 21

Tiny and Courageous Finches 22
Go On High Ship 31
Marcel Addresses Kate 36


Two 39

Why I No Longer Skype 40
Portrait of Big Logos 42
Once I thought I was going to die . . . 43
All the Littles in Exodus 47
Semi Semi Dash 48
Poem for His Ex-Girlfriend 49
Goodbyes 52
For Big Logos, In Hopes He Will Write Poems Again 54
Be Not Far From Me 57


Curtain Call 61

Elegy for Zahra Baker 62


Notes 68

Editorial Reviews

Peace makes awful poetry” writes Weise in her second collection, in which goodbyes “begin long before you hear them/ and gain speed.” Split into two main sections—or acts—with Intermission in between and Curtain Call at the end, this is a smart and savvy ode to absences—of a lover, of a self, and of a part of the self, literal and figurative. Weise, an amputee, writes brilliantly about being marked as a “disabled poet;” in “Café Loop,” a dialectic between strangers, she writes, “I knew her/ from FSU, back before she was disabled.// I mean she was disabled but she didn’t/ write like it.” Big Logos, Weise’s name for her paramour figure, is “Li Po sometimes/ and Catullus others,” making cameos in varying stages of departure: “The thing about him is// he keeps being the thing. You could never/ count on him. I did.” Intermission’s whimsical, hip fables star anthropomorphic finches, and the Curtain Call’s “Elegy for Zahra Baker”—a philosophical tract on absence, presence, and pain—brilliantly examines the case of a missing person, a young girl with a missing leg. Throughout, Weise’s masterfully balanced voice transforms even unique intricacies of her experience into a way to relate to—not alienate—the reader. This is a brilliant book ultimately about connection. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

"[The Book of Goodbyes]...is punctuated with an intriguing dip into magic realism." —Charleston City Paper

"…a smart and savvy ode to absences—of a lover, of a self, and of a part of the self, literal and figurative ... This is a brilliant book ultimately about connection.” —Publishers Weekly *Starred* Review

"This book reminds us that the pain of love and loss, in the hands of a powerful wordsmith such as Weise, might just morph into passion, thrill, strength. And that love-suffering can bring us ever closer to lovability because through it we learn to connect, renew, transform.” -Brenda Shaughnessy, The Academy of American Poets

“...unflinching and profoundly relevant poetry … a take on alienation that implicitly indicts all of us.” -Huffington Post

“These fierce, hip, heartbreaking love poems call out to a lover who can’t be lived with or without. They’re humorous, odd, and full of all the unreasonable truth of love. This book is the real thing.” -Publishers Weekly

“Book of Goodbyes is edgy” and “in-your face.” -Library Journal

“Jillian Weise … is a force of nature. This collection follows up her debut, The Amputee’s Guide to Sex, with what happens when sex becomes love that just won’t go away — no matter how unsuitable the beloved seems to be. This is love poetry for the 21st century: hot, hip and heart-rending.” -Craig Morgan Teicher

From the Publisher