The World Began with Yes: Poems

by Erica Jong

Overview

The author of Fear of Flying “touches on her mother’s death, astrophysics and her own return to poetry, which ‘came / unbidden / as it / always / does’” (The New York Times).
 
Life challenges us to celebrate even when our very existence is threatened. Never have we needed poetry more.
 
Poetry was #1 New York Times–bestselling novelist Erica Jong’s first love, and she never left it. In a dark time, she celebrates life—the title of this collection, The World Began with Yes, comes from the celebrated Brazilian writer Clarice Lispector, who was deeply in love with life despite many tragedies.
 
Jong believes that the poet sees the world in a grain of sand and eternity in a wild flower—as Blake wrote. Her work has always stressed the importance of the lives of women, women’s creativity, and self-confidence, and this collection is an inspiration to readers, as well as the next generation of poets.
 
“Say ‘yes,’ to this collection and let the world begin.” —Kim Dower, author of Sunbathing on Tyrone Power’s Grave

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781597096584
Publisher:	Red Hen Press
Publication date:	09/30/2020
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	84
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Erica Jong is a celebrated poet, novelist & essayist with over twenty-five published books that have been influential all over the world. Her most popular novel, Fear of Flying, celebrated its fortieth anniversary in 2013. Never out of print, it has sold over thirty-five million copies in forty-two languages including Chinese and Arabic. Erica’s latest novel, Fear of Dying,was published in 2015/2016 with many publishers all over the world. Her awards include the Fernanda Pivano Award for Literature in Italy (named for the critic who introduced Ernest Hemingway, Allen Ginsberg, and Erica Jong to the Italian public), the Sigmund Freud Award in Italy, the Deauville Literary Award in France, the United Nations Award for Excellence in Literature, and Poetry Magazine’s Bess Hokin Prize (also won by Sylvia Plath and W.S. Merwin). Erica’s poetry has appeared in publications worldwide, including The New Yorker, Los Angeles Times, The Paris Review, Haaretz, and many more. Erica lives in New York and Connecticut with her husband and two poodles.

Erica Jong is an award-winning poet, novelist, and essayist best known for her eight bestselling novels, including the international bestseller Fear of Flying. She is also the author of seven award-winning collections of poetry.

Read an Excerpt

 

UNICORNS

 

Girls love them

even before they yearn

for that twisted ivory horn.

 

Wistful for what

they never knew,

they braid

the rainbow hair

of tiny Unicorns.

 

Yet the Bible

makes them

symbols of strength.

 

Were they Aurochs

or Elasmotheria,

now extinct?

 

Why did God remind

Job of his own creation

of beasts

when Job was at his

nadir?

 

Did HA-SHEM mean

that animals are stronger

than those who worship them?

You Bet!

 

& Maidens who gaze

upon Unicorns

as Unicorns

gaze upon them

are the fiercest girls

in the red tent.

 

Come, then, with me

to my own museum

in Paris,

the Cluny:

Musee du Moyen Age,

 

& see the Unicorn

gazing at his comely Horn

in my Maiden's Mirror,

 

while she dreams

erotic dreams—

all tapestry—

celebrating

the five senses:

 

Touch, taste, smell,

hearing, sight.

 

Our Maiden feeds

both Lion & Unicorn,

forms of desire.

 

No wonder the

tapestry exults

 

À Mon Seul Désir!

 

What more

could Maidens want

than the everlasting

hardness of the Unicorn,

tail upstanding,

supplicant to her

 

virginity,

hooves in her honied lap,

eating sweetly

from her cupped hand?

 

Oh Unicorn,

come to me

from your red

forest of love

& drink

my poetry—

The true trace

of my Virginity . . .

 

Of course

there are more

than five senses!

 

Knowledge of

Future, Past,

Poetry, Song, Colors,

Stars & Planets.

 

Stay, fragile Earth

for Bette,

my granddaughter,

that she may know,

the Unicorn of Love

& Longing,

the Unicorn

 

of Work & Worship,

The Unicorn

of Springing

Hooved Imagination!

 

The Unicorn

that licks

her little

hand!

 

That nuzzles

her pink neck,

that kisses

her brown/blue

eyes, that

lies down

with languor

& longing.

 

Unicorns are

hardly symbols,

but lovers of our

Little Ones!

 

Gentle, gentle

Unicorn, come

to my study

in the green,

teach my darling girl

to grow

with Fantasy &

Passion,

Plenty & Poetrys . . .

That’s all she needs.

Table of Contents

The World Began With Yes 13

The Breathing Of The World 15

Child On The Beach 16

Oracle Of Light 18

Unicorns 20

Acupuncturist 25

News 26

Blue Bird, Red Bird 27

Child's Play 28

"Be Careful Darkness" 29

Day Of Atonement 30

Brief Valentine 32

Connoisseur Of Longing 33

Hats 34

Inside Out 36

One 37

Love To His Soul 38

New Theory Of Love 40

Where The Poem Comes From- 41

Emily's Birthday 42

Emily Dickinson: A New Daguerreotype 44

Poetry Is Better Than Xanax 46

Spanking 48

Visible/Invisible 50

Why I Hate The News 52

Your Eggs 54

Writing Poetry Again 55

The Mental Traveller 65

The Danish Poet 66

What Is Love? 68

Facebook Friend 69

Not A Bot 70

On Hearing That Alice Munro Is Now A Stamp 71

The Wish Not Heard 72

Breasts 74

Dying Is Not Black 76

Almost Dying 78

Not With A Bang But A Whimper 80

The World 84

Her Death 85

Taking The Train 86

Prophet's Storm 87

Speaking With The Dead 88

Breath's End 90

Interviews

Vanessa Daou and Erica Jong on the Making of the Electronica Classic Zipless

Editorial Reviews

"In her new collection, Jong (whose 1973 novel “Fear of Flying” has sold over 37 million copies) touches on her mother’s death, astrophysics and her own return to poetry, which 'came / unbidden / as it / always / does.'"


—The New York Times New & Noteworthy Poetry Feature

From the vigor of the political to the complications of religion, from the purity of the spiritual to the riot of the body, The World Began With Yes wakes us up to say, "Yes!" Jong's poems brim with language that is supple and fierce, elegant and wise—all of it creating a feast of joy. Here we have everything great poetry is meant to be.
—Linda Gray Sexton, author of Searching for Mercy Street: My Journey Back to My Mother, Anne Sexton and Half in Love: Surviving the Legacy of Suicide.

Erica Jong’s new book of poetry is inspiring, uplifting, exciting, stimulating, engrossing—piercing. These new poems of Erica’s light up the page with tears and shouts, with wounds and exclamations, with yes, yes! That is it, that is what I feel, what I imagined, what I dreamed. Ms. Jong says she culled these poems from those she has written over the last decades, poems whose writing keeps her alive. That is what poetry is for, to keep us alive, to wake us up!! Erica has done that for me again today, kept me alive, breathing, weeping, shouting at the page, “Yes!!” This is what it takes to make a poem, to make a life. Right on the money, right on the edge, right on the heart, right on the breath, The World Began With Yes is the real deal.

Get it and read it. You need it. We all need it. In this time of agitation and fear, you will fly with Erica Jong—she brings us back to what matters—the heart, the mind, the head, the imagination—the “Yes” of life.

—Judy Collins

Erica Jong's new collection of poetry is, as its title suggests, both affirmative and exhilarating. Whether she is writing about her grandchildren, the loss of her mother, or an Alice Munro stamp, Jong's images are always vividly evocative. Her poems are filled with an equal awareness of the sensuous nature of life and its inevitable decline. This is the work of a poet in her prime, filled with candor and wisdom.
—Daphne Merkin

From the Publisher

02/01/2019

Poet/novelist/essayist Jong's latest poetry collection is the 26th volume she's brought forth in a long and prolific career, an achievement that well may be a marvel even to her. As she writes in "The Danish Poet": "How fascinating/ you are still/ writing poetry/ though you are no longer young/ says the Danish poet /not young herself/ & still writing." Indeed, most of the poems in this volume have this same point-and-shoot quality: nothing fancy or transcendent-aiming. There's only frank reportage on these pages and a firm embrace of life. "The World" is a case in point, a poem stripped down to an essential idea by a practiced hand: "The world rushes by/ people we loved die/ & the world does not stop/ astoundingly. We pause/ but the world/ does not stop." VERDICT Fans of this well-known author will be interested to see how well Jong gives voice to the inevitable thoughts that come with aging.—Iris S. Rosenberg, New York

Library Journal