A Desk in the Elephant HouseTexas Tech University Press, 1998 - 70 páginas "In a time when so many poets are out to unload the dead weight of their pasts on the reader, it is refreshing to read the work of Cathryn Essinger who realizes that before it can do anything else, poetry must give pleasure. Smart, sweetly crafted, and open-voiced, her poems are propelled not only by memory but by thought and wit. She is a poet after my own heart - and she has it." --Billy Collins "'One cannot help loving a mathematician, ' Cathryn Essinger writes, and these poems shine with generous, tough love for the stubbornly individual people and things of this world. Both keen and gentle, mingling delight and grief, the poems investigate the strangeness of the familiar and draw us into their new, strangely familiar places. One can hardly help loving this book." --Jeff Gundy "Cathryn Essinger's first book of poems is a book of fulfillments. The poetry itself is filled--with both the quotidian and the near-miraculous, the close detail and a passional perspective. But filled, too, is the glowing sense of her stories, as they weave and loop throughout the collection, all within a single vital consciousness. The talkative, rich voice in the poems is also full, as in the figure of the cup." "Cathryn Essinger affirms the middle world, our familiar position between the worlds of intellect and sensation. We are small creatures 'digging skyward, pushing through the roots / of stars, chewing at the webbing of the universe' ('Ropes and Ladders'). Ours is a precarious adventure 'as we grope / for a hold on some steep cliff, hearing / only the whimper of ropes and lines / and the swish of the wind.' Here 'everything is bright / and properly placed.' Everything is familiar, so much the same ('Ropes and Ladders'). Light divides the darkness. We know our world and it is not waste and void. It is good." |
Conteúdo
A Desk in the Elephant House | 3 |
The Philosophy Professor Discusses the Nature of the SelfConscious Mindor The Invisible Bear | 7 |
In a Literary Voice | 8 |
English 123 Discusses Virginia Woolf | 10 |
David | 11 |
Art History 121 | 12 |
Fourth Position Grande Jete | 13 |
Nude On A Couch | 14 |
Growing Accustomed to Green | 45 |
Ladders | 46 |
Alice Reads to the Daffodils | 47 |
Blue Lakes and Scarlet Runners | 48 |
Talking to Flowers | 49 |
Amniotic | 50 |
Green Will | 51 |
DoubleWinged Achenes | 52 |
In These Paintings By David | 16 |
Watercolor | 17 |
A Response to Critics | 18 |
On The Beach | 19 |
The Intimacy of Strangers | 23 |
Are You My Angel? | 24 |
For Six Friends | 26 |
You Are Right | 27 |
The Mathematician Counting | 28 |
Three Stories That Deserve Better Telling | 29 |
From the Top of the Hill | 31 |
Running | 32 |
Patching the Sky | 33 |
Letter to Jerry | 34 |
I Dont Remember Taking This Picture | 37 |
For My Brother Reading Over My Shoulder | 38 |
Lions | 39 |
Biography | 40 |
Not to Reply | 41 |
Today the Starlings Are Listening to Brahms | 53 |
As I Try to Explain No Words Come Out | 54 |
Drought | 55 |
Phases of the Moon | 57 |
Moon Garden | 58 |
Equinox | 59 |
Eclipse | 60 |
Coincidence | 61 |
Two Apples | 63 |
Fences | 64 |
Clearing the Garden | 65 |
Dry Creek Bed | 66 |
In a Winter Space | 67 |
To the Power of the Air | 68 |
Not Understanding Hands | 69 |
Ropes and Ladders | 70 |
Notes | |
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Termos e frases comuns
123 Discusses Virginia Accustomed to Green Alice Reads Amniotic arms Art History 121 beside Billie Jean King blossom blue heron blue jay breathless moment Cathryn Essinger Cathryn Essinger's cheek Daffodils dark Deserve Better Telling Desk Discusses the Nature Discusses Virginia Woolf door Double-Winged Achenes Drought Dry Creek Bed Edison Community College Elephant House English 123 Discusses everything is bright eyes feet fingers Gloria Steinem Growing Accustomed head hear Hubble telescope Intimacy of Strangers know this story Lakes and Scarlet Letter To Jerry light Literary Voice look Mathematician Moon Garden morning night Noah's Ark Paintings By David Patching the Sky persona Peter Spier Philosophy Professor Discusses pockets Poetry polar bear possibly know reality Ropes and Ladders Scarlet Runners seeds Self-Conscious Mind shadow shoulders Six Friends Sorry stars Talking to Flowers Texas Tech University toad Touch Too Familiar Try To Explain Understanding Hands Walt McDonald Watercolor Winter Space wonder