Wolf Lake, White Gown Blown Open: Poems (Juniper Prize for

Wolf Lake, White Gown Blown Open: Poems (Juniper Prize for Poetry)

Diane Seuss's poems grow out of the fertile soil of southwest Michigan, bursting any and all stereotypes of the Midwest and turning loose characters worthy of Faulkner in their obsession, their suffering, their dramas of love and sex and death. The first section of this collection pays homage to the poet's roots in a place where the world hands you nothing and promises less, so you are left to invent yourself or disappear. From there these poems both recount and embody repeated acts of defiant self-creation in the face of despair, loss, and shame, and always in the shadow of annihilation.

With darkly raucous humor and wrenching pathos, Seuss burrows furiously into liminal places of no dimensionâ€• state lines, lakes' edges, the space "between the m and the e in the word amen." From what she calls "this place inbetween" come profane prayers in which "the sound of hope and the sound of suffering" are revealed to be "the same music played on the same instrument."

Midway through this book, a man tells the speaker that beauty is that which has not been touched. This collection is a righteous and fierce counterargument: in the world of this imagination, beauty spills from that which has been crushed, torn, and harrowed. "We receive beauty," Seuss writes, "as a nail receives / the hammer blow." This is the poetry that comes only after the white dress has been blown openâ€•the poetry of necessity, where a wild imagination is the only hope.
Country USA
Brand University of Massachusetts Press
Manufacturer University of Massachusetts Press
Binding Paperback
ReleaseDate 2010-04-06
UnitCount 1
EANs 9781558498259

Country	USA
Brand	University of Massachusetts Press
Manufacturer	University of Massachusetts Press
Binding	Paperback
ReleaseDate	2010-04-06
UnitCount	1
EANs	9781558498259

Wolf Lake, White Gown Blown Open: Poems (Juniper Prize for Poetry)

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