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Overview
“Kasischke astonishes with her lyricism and metaphorical power.” —Publishers Weekly
“Every poem is exquisitely crafted, with crisp, clean lines and imagery that dazzles.”—The Washington Post
“For Kasischke… poetry is a kind of revenge on the existential limits that it describes”—Los Angeles Review of Books
Laura Kasischke’s long-awaited selected poems presents the breadth of her probing vision that subverts the so-called “normal.” A lover of fairy tales, Kasischke showcases her command of the symbolic, with a keen attention to sound in her exploration of the everyday—whether reflections on loss or the complicated realities of childhood and family. As literary critic Stephen Burt wrote in Boston Review, “The future will not see us by one poet alone….If there is any justice in that future, Kasischke is one of the poets it will choose.”
This incandescent volume makes the case that Laura Kasischke is one of America’s great poets, and her presence is secure.
From "Dear Water":
I am your lost daughter and, as always, you
are listening & fish. Though
I sift you for sunlight, it
runs from me in glistening pins, vanishes
in the wavering map
of your ungraspable heart. When I
reach in, you
swallow my cold hands again, swallow
the joy they'd hold. . .
Laura Kasischke is a poet and novelist whose fiction has been made into several feature-length films. Her book of poems, Space, in Chains, won the National Book Critics Circle Award. She currently teaches at the University of Michigan and lives in Chelsea, Michigan.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781556596445 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Copper Canyon Press |
| Publication date: | 09/07/2021 |
| Pages: | 363 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.90(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.30(d) |
Table of Contents
The Owls 3
1 New Poems
Ubi sunt? 7
The Whole 8
Disasters Involving Dictionaries 10
Loved Me 11
Green 13
Two Men & a Truck 14
Pandora's Cellar 17
Shadow 18
The Breath 20
The Hourglass 21
The Enormous Cage 24
The Wall 25
For the Return of the Bee 27
My Father's Stoicism 29
The Widows' Neighborhood 31
What I Learned in Ninth Grade 32
The Sound of Icicles Broken Off the Eaves 35
2 From The Infinitesimals
Binoculars 39
The Second Trumpet 40
At the End of the Text, a Small Bestial Form 41
Mushrooms 42
This Is Not a Poem/Fairy Tale 43
Boy in Park 44
You've Come Back to Me 45
The Common Cold 46
May Morning 49
Ivan 50
Oblivion 52
Perspective 53
Door 54
For the Young Woman I Saw Hit by a Car While Riding Her Bike 55
In This Order 58
Milk Tree 59
Masks 60
The Accident 61
The Invalid 63
3 From Space, in Chains
Your last day 67
Hospital parking lot, April 68
At the public pool 69
Riddle 70
The call of the one duck flying south 71
My beautiful soul 72
The photograph album in the junk shop 73
Memory of grief 75
Time 76
The knot 77
Love poem 78
My son practicing the violin 79
View from glass door 80
O elegant giant 82
The inner workings 83
Look 84
They say 85
We watch my father try to put on his shirt 87
Stolen shoes 88
Near misses 89
Cigarettes 90
My son makes a gesture my mother used to make 92
Riddle 93
Briefly 94
Space, in chains 95
Home 96
O elegant giant 97
4 From Lilies Without
Prayer 101
At Gettysburg 102
I Am the Coward Who Did Not Pick Up the Phone 105
Miss Post-Apocalypse 106
The Thigh 107
Elegy 108
Miss Estrogen 110
My Father's Closet 112
May 113
Stroke 115
The Bad Teacher 116
Miss Consolation for Emotional Damages 117
Fashion Victim 119
Poem Ending in Lines from Jarrell 120
Miss Congeniality 122
War with Toy Soldiers 124
Miss Weariness 126
New Dress 127
Miss Brevity 129
5 From Gardening in the Dark
Alcoholism 133
The Internet 135
Black Dress 136
"Today, a Thief Who Stole Beehives, Hanged" 138
Speeding Ticket 139
The Second Week of May 143
Macaroni & Cheese 144
Forest 146
World Peace 148
Inscriptions on Wax Tablets 150
Sacred Flower Watching Me 151
Hardware Store in a Town without Men 153
Eighteen Days of Rain 155
Inscriptions on Wax Tablets 157
Happy Meal 159
6 From Dance and Disappear
Clown 165
Please 167
Buffalo 168
Spontaneous Human Combustion: An Introduction 171
Bike Ride with Older Boys 172
Guide to Imaginary Places: X-Ray 174
Small Boys Petting Caterpillar 175
The Visibility of Spirits 177
Executioner as Muse 179
Oven 180
Green Bicycle 182
Guide to Imaginary Places: Back of the North Wind 185
My Son in the Cereal Aisle 187
Guide to Imaginary Places: Abaton 189
Joy 191
Spontaneous Human Combustion: "Girl, Kissing, Bursts into Flames" 193
Kitchen Song 194
7 From Fire & Flower
Do Not Leave Baby Unattended 197
Hostess 199
Dear Earth 203
The Cause of All My Suffering 205
Wolves 207
Confections 209
Prayer 210
Dear Water 212
What I Hear in Your Hair 213
A Long Commute 215
Barney 216
Dear Fire 218
Burial 220
Infants' Corner 222
Dear Air 225
Fire & Flower 227
8 From What It Wasn't
Night 231
Cocktail Waitress 232
Childhood Visions of Beautiful Women 235
Roxy's Bordello, Boarded Up 236
Andy's Lanes & Lounge 238
Woman in a Girdle 240
What It Wasn't 242
WARNING: 246
Sad Song 249
Recollection 252
Morning 255
9 From Housekeeping in a Dream
House Fable 259
Tribe of Women 261
Crow's Feet 264
Babysitter 265
Parrot, Fever 267
Crow's Feet 270
Fatima 271
Crow's Feet 274
Ravine 275
Exploding Homes 277
Natural Selection 279
Crow's Feet 282
Aqua 283
10 From Wild Brides
The Cyclone 289
The Driver's Lullaby 291
Hymn from the House of Trouble 293
Timespan 295
The Sorceress and the Wife 297
Bells of Ice 299
Solomon Grundy 301
Woman Kills Sweetheart with Bowling Ball 303
To Whom It May Concern 304
Rosebush 306
Palm 308
Godmother's Advice 310
11 New Poems
House to House 315
Spies 316
Innocence 318
The Names of the Trees 320
The Face 323
Rockefeller Plaza 325
Champagne 328
Ubi sunt 330
On the Properties of Summer 334
Pandora's Mouth 335
In the Meantime 336
The Guestbook 338
Delirium 339
Sensual Pleasures 340
March 343
Envelope Addressed to Me with Your Return Address 344
The Hunt 346
Praying Mantis in My Husband's Salad 347
Bored Girl Spits into an Abyss 350
Daysleep 352
Index of Titles 355
Acknowledgments 359
About the Author 363