Download or read book Zion written by TJ Jarrett and published by SIU Press. This book was released on 2014-09-18 with total page 89 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Zion, the latest collection of poems by TJ Jarrett, is the poignant study of the resonating effects of the civil rights movement on one family. Jarrett lovingly explores the minutiae of mortality and race across three generations of “Dark Girls” who have come together one summer to grieve and to remember as one of them passes to the farther shore—a place beyond retribution, where there is only forgiveness. The Mississippi of Jarrett’s collection is alive with fireflies and locusts and murders of crows; yet for some, it is a wasteland of unanswered prayers, burning evenings, and the shades of dead or disappeared loved ones. There, the dark nights of the soul weigh long and heavy, and “every heart has its solstice, and its ache is unrelenting.” Yet much as every solstice has an equinox, every time to kill has a time to forgive. Throughout the volume, the author imagines opportunities for compassion on multiple levels, from sweeping pardons to the most intimate of mercies. Jarrett’s faceless narrator confesses the past through conversation and exploration with notorious Mississippi governor Theodore Bilbo: two minds, two hearts, two races at last face to face. At once brutal and achingly tender, Jarrett’s volume itself is a vibrant and musical body, singing to all its parts.

Download or read book Threshold written by Jennifer Richter and published by SIU Press. This book was released on 2010-04-30 with total page 88 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jennifer Richter presents a series of poems that explore the many facets of the term "threshold." Throughout the collection, the narrator experiences several acts of threshing, or separating—from birth and the small yet profound distances that part a mother and child, to the separation caused by illness and its toll on relationships. At the same time, she is progressively gathering, piecing together the remnants of her life, collecting her children into her arms, and welcoming a future without pain. Pain is often present in these poems, as the narrator frequently confronts her own threshold for enduring a ravaging illness. Her harrowing struggle through recovery is chronicled by a poem at the end of each section, tracing her powerful journey from deep suffering to a fragile yet steadfast sense of hope. These gripping lyric and prose poems explore duality in its many forms: the private, contemplative world versus a world of action; the mirror sides of health and sickness; the warmth of a June sun and the deep, long nights of winter; mother and child; collecting and letting go. From the comfort of a morning bed at home to the desperate streets of Hanoi, Threshold is a searing portrait of healing, the courage it takes to bridge the gulfs that divide, and the wonder of the ties that bind. What Is My Body Without You? My son’s pajamas unsnapped on the floor: small husk of his body relaxing on its back, legs and sleeves still filled with his rush. This part of him hasn’t outgrown my arms and sometimes lets me lift him up our steep stairs, carry him to bed and pull his shade against the gray thin winter sky like milk my daughter wakes up wanting. In the last days of lifting her to my breast, I fill her less than the air already gone from my son’s flat shape. Twice like that I have lain back, the doctor opening me along the same clean seam. Each time I was watching: with a few tugs the child was out, naked and heading toward other hands, each child cut loose before I knew it.

Download or read book Egg Island Almanac written by Brendan Galvin and published by SIU Press. This book was released on 2017-08-11 with total page 80 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The bounty and cruelty of nature infuses this latest collection of poems from Brendan Galvin, which takes as its maxim finding the extraordinary in the ordinary all around us--that there's wonder aplenty in our own backyards.

Download or read book Abide written by Jake Adam York and published by SIU Press. This book was released on 2014-03-06 with total page 98 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner, 2015 Colorado Book Award Finalist, 2015 National Book Critics Circle Award In the years leading up to his recent passing, Alabama poet Jake Adam York set out on a journey to elegize the 126 martyrs of the civil rights movement, murdered in the years between 1954 and 1968. Abide is the stunning follow-up to York’s earlier volumes, a memorial in verse for those fallen. From Birmingham to Okemah, Memphis to Houston, York’s poems both mourn and inspire in their quest for justice, ownership, and understanding. Within are anthems to John Earl Reese, a sixteen-year-old shot by Klansmen through the window of a café in Mayflower, Texas, where he was dancing in 1955; to victims lynched on the Oklahoma prairies; to the four children who perished in the Birmingham church bombing of 1963; and to families who saw the white hoods of the Klan illuminated by burning crosses. Juxtaposed with these horrors are more loving images of the South: the aroma of greens simmering on the stove, “tornado-strong” houses built by loved ones long gone, and the power of rivers “dark as roux.” Throughout these lush narratives, York resurrects the ghosts of Orpheus, Sun Ra, Howlin’ Wolf, Thelonious Monk, Woody Guthrie, and more, summoning blues, jazz, hip-hop, and folk musicians for performances of their “liberation music” that give special meaning to the tales of the dead. In the same moment that Abide memorializes the fallen, it also raises the ethical questions faced by York during this, his life’s work: What does it mean to elegize? What does it mean to elegize martyrs? What does it mean to disturb the symmetries of the South’s racial politics or its racial poetics? A bittersweet elegy for the poet himself, Abide is as subtle and inviting as the whisper of a record sleeve, the gasp of the record needle, beckoning us to heed our history.

Download or read book Sympathetic Magic written by Amy Fleury and published by SIU Press. This book was released on 2013-03-26 with total page 80 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Amy Fleury’s bewitching new collection of poems, Sympathetic Magic, unveils the everyday manifestations of sympathy as well as the connections wrought by “sympathetic magic”—that indelible tether that binds people, places, and objects across time and distance. Fleury’s lyrics journey across the landscapes of childhood and old age, body and spirit, past and future, exploring the boundless permutations of sympathy as it appears in the most surprising locations. Connections reveal themselves in the aggressive silence of the small town or the round penmanship of a loved one, and echo throughout the solitude and regeneration of the forest as well as the antiseptic air of the hospital. At the center of these travels lies the narrator, stretching her limbs from the heart of the heartland, her body a compass summoning us from all directions, emphasizing with tender simplicity that “we all live under the self-same moon, no matter the phase.”

Download or read book Huang Po and the Dimensions of Love written by Wally Swist and published by SIU Press. This book was released on 2012-08-23 with total page 98 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Huang Po and the Dimensions of Love, poet Wally Swist blends themes of love and epiphany to lead readers into a more conscious interaction with the world around them. These ethereal poems call upon a spirituality unfettered to any specific religion, yet universal and potent in its scope, offering a window through which life can be not only viewed but also truly experienced. This luminescent collection illustrates the joys to be found in the everyday world and the power of existence. Unveiled here are the twin edges of love and madness; the quiet mysteries and revelations of a New England night or the glittering spark of snowdrops; the sharp scents of sugar maple and cinnamon; and the rustle of a junco’s wings. From the restoration and peace of silence or the rush of a brook, to spiraling hawks and Botticelli’s “The Annunciation,” Swist’s poems linger somewhere between the earthbound and the sublime.

Download or read book Smith Blue written by Camille T. Dungy and published by SIU Press. This book was released on 2011-05-18 with total page 90 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Smith Blue, Camille T. Dungy offers a survival guide for the modern heart as she takes on twenty-first-century questions of love, loss, and nature. From a myriad of lenses, these poems examine the human capability for perseverance in the wake of heartbreak; the loss of beloved heroes and landscapes; and our determination in the face of everyday struggles. Dungy explores the dual nature of our presence on the planet, juxtaposing the devastation caused by human habitation with our own vulnerability to the capricious whims of our environment. In doing so, she reveals with fury and tenderness the countless ways in which we both create and are victims of catastrophe. This searing collection delves into the most intimate transformations wrought by our ever-shifting personal, cultural, and physical terrains, each fraught with both disillusionment and hope. In the end, Dungy demonstrates how we are all intertwined, regardless of race or species, living and loving as best we are able in the shadows of both man-made and natural follies. Flight It is the day after the leaves, when buckeyes, like a thousand thousand pendulums, clock trees, and squirrels, fat in their winter fur, chuckle hours, chortle days. It is the time for the parting of our ways. You slid into the summer of my sleeping, crept into my lonely hours, ate the music of my dreams. You filled yourself with the treated sweet I offered, then shut your rolling eyes and stole my sleep. Came morning and me awake. Came morning. Awake, I walked twelve miles to the six-gun shop. On the way there I saw a bird-of-prayer all furled up by the river. I called to it. It would not unfold. On the way home I killed it. It is the time of the waking cold, when buckeyes, like a thousand thousand metronomes, tock time, and you, fat on my summer sleep, titter toward me, walk away. It is the time for the parting of our days.

Download or read book Queer Girls in Class written by Lori Horvitz and published by Peter Lang. This book was released on 2011 with total page 198 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lori Horvit'z short stories, poetry, and creative nonfiction have appeared in a variety of literary journals and anthologies. Horvitz, the recipient of an M.F.A. in creative writing from Brooklyn College, and a Ph.D. in English from SUNY Albany, she has been awarded writing fellowships from Yaddo, Ragdale, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Blue Mountain Center, Cottages at Hedgebrook, and Fundaci=n Valparaiso. She is Associate Professor of Literature and Language at UNC-Asheville, where she teaches courses in creative writing, literature, and women's studies. --Book Jacket.

Download or read book Ordinary is Perfect written by D. Jackson Leigh and published by Bold Strokes Books Inc. This book was released on 2019-01-15 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Army veteran Catherine Daye long ago accepted her passable looks, mediocre talent, and average intelligence. In fact, she bought a rundown farm on seventy acres to retreat from the world and live out her simple, ordinary life. Atlanta marketing superstar Autumn Swan’s world is anything but simple. Constantly plugged in to what’s trending on social media, it’s her job to keep her clients ahead of the competition. When her favorite cousin dies suddenly, she finds herself the owner of a modest country home, guardian to a sullen, tomboyish ten-year-old, and neighbor to an intriguing woman who isn’t as ordinary as she appears.

Download or read book Tongue Lyre written by Tyler Mills and published by SIU Press. This book was released on 2013-03-13 with total page 81 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Tongue Lyre, Tyler Mills weaves together fragments of myth and memory, summoning the works of Ovid, Homer, and James Joyce to spin a story of violence and the female body. Introducing the recurring lyre figure in the collection—a voice to counter the violence—is Ovid’s Philomena, who, while cruelly rendered speechless, nonetheless sets the reader on an eloquent voyage to discover the body through music, art, and language. Other legendary figures making appearances within—Telemachos, Nestor, Cyclops, Circe, and others—are held up as mirrors to reflect the human form as home. In this dynamic collection, the female body and its relationship to the psyche traverse mythic yet hauntingly familiar contemporary settings as each presents not a single narrative but a progressive exploration of our universal emotional experience.

Download or read book On the Cusp of a Dangerous Year written by Lee Ann Roripaugh and published by SIU Press. This book was released on 2009-10-14 with total page 92 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lady Murasaki wrote in The Tale of Genji that thirty-seven is “a dangerous year” for women. Evoking the styles of Murasaki and other women writers of the Heian-period Japanese court, Lee Ann Roripaugh presents a collection of confessional poems charting the course of that perilous year. Roripaugh, in both an homage to and a dialogue with women writers of the past, explores the trials of women facing the treacherous waters of time while losing none of the grace and decadence of femininity. Often calling upon the passing of the seasons and revelations of nature, these lyrically elegant poems chronicle the dangers and delights of a range of issues facing contemporary women—from bisexuality and biracial culture and identity, to restless nights and lingering memories of the past. The pleasures of the senses collide with parallels of time and the natural world; tangible solitude lies down beside wistful memories of relationships gone by. What is ultimately revealed is both heartbreaking and illuminating. At once provocative, humorous, and bittersweet, On the Cusp of a Dangerous Year is a pillow book for the twenty-first century, providing a candid and whimsical look into the often tumultuous universe of the modern woman.

Download or read book Nostalgia for a World Where We Can Live written by Monica Berlin and published by Southern Illinois University Press. This book was released on 2018-10-11 with total page 90 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Monica Berlin’s Nostalgia for a World Where We Can Live resides at the turbulent confluence of relentless news cycles and the repeated rending of our interior lives. In Berlin’s poetry sorrow makes its own landscape—solitary, intimate, forward-looking. Whether we attempt to traverse it or choose bypass, her poems show us where we live, how we carry on. These poems notice the day in the wind, the night tucked up to the train tracks, and a slipping-in of yesterday, memory-laden, alongside the promise of a more hopeful tomorrow. Here is the Midwest, vibrant and relic, in the ongoing years of collapse and recovery. Here the constant companionship of weather lays claim to its own field of vision. Here, too, devastation: what’s left after. Berlin reminds us we are at the mercy of rivers, oceans, earth, wind, rain, blizzard, drought, and each other. “Maybe what I mean / to say is that I’ve come to see all the names we might / recognize destruction by,” Berlin’s speaker discovers. “We might / sometimes, stupidly, call it love.” On her familiar prairie of lyricism and tumult, beauty and ruin, Berlin’s poems insist, plead, and seek to reassure. In a collection both mournful and urgent, both a “little book of days” and a song, this poet meditates on loss, wonder, and always the consolations of language.

Download or read book When All Hope Is Lost written by Alyce Elmore and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2022-06-14 with total page 325 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The women of 2029 faced a terrible crisis when a pandemic killed all adult males, but they survived and now, twenty years later, they are once again starting to thrive. The problem is that the disease continues to kill males as they reach maturity and there's no cure in sight. Having adapted to a world that is no longer dependent on men, is it time to change history to her story?

Download or read book Into Each Room We Enter Without Knowing written by Charif Shanahan and published by SIU Press. This book was released on 2017-01-20 with total page 92 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In Into Each Room We Enter without Knowing, poet Charif Shanahan explores the various ways in which we as a species inherit identity constructs, chiefly about race and sexuality, and how we navigate those constructs in the creation of our identities"--

Download or read book Strange Land written by Todd Hearon and published by SIU Press. This book was released on 2010-04-08 with total page 85 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Todd Hearon’s haunting debut collection chronicles the twin paths of isolation and desire in the search for meaning and union with others. On his pilgrimage through the lost worlds of earth and the soul, the speaker encounters drought in both the literal and spiritual sense as he confronts desolate landscapes, from the brown remnants of ruined cities, to the depths of the human heart and man’s capacity for utter destruction. Yet even though he frequently encounters darkness, he never ceases to seek beauty. He is a man who wears many faces, from Adam, staring down a bleak future bereft of Paradise, to the doomed poet Shelley, drowned off the coast of Italy. He speaks as a man adrift in his own life, seeking an answer to his emptiness, an estranged traveler through memory and longing. Lyrical and intense, Strange Land is a quest for understanding and human connection. Strange Land It goes without saying a word: the world under cover of midnight snow, what we have known of pageantry and lilac, leaf and song subsumed in starless silence. Waking at dawn into the tremulous blue of the room, as in earth’s afterglow, we lie, lidless, listening, as crows call out the ear’s horizons. What year is it? Into what country were we born and now must make our way? Outside the pane the stillness feels ancestral but the ghosts not yours, not mine. My émigré, we are cut off. An ocean to the east churns in chiaroscuro while unseen ranges to the south deflect our passage, what passage might have been. This country seems the passing of a dream to a moonscape’s still immitigable white, a land’s amnesia where against the sky three needling black birds fly and slip like an ellipsis out of sight.

Download or read book Dandarians written by Lee Ann Roripaugh and published by Milkweed Editions. This book was released on 2014-08-18 with total page 113 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hailed by Ishmael Reed as “one of our brightest talents,” Lee Ann Roripaugh’s fourth collection of poems maps the illusory and ephemeral connection between identities and language. Based on sources as diverse as Heian-period Japanese women writers and the world of science fiction, and drawing on her own experience as a second-generation Japanese American, Dandarians explores a series of “word betrayals”—English words misunderstood in transmission from her Japanese mother that came to take on symbolic ramifications in her early years. Co-opting and repurposing the language of knowledge and of misunderstanding, and dialoguing in original ways with notions of diaspora and hybrid identities, these poems demonstrate the many ways we attempt to be understood, culminating in an experience of aural awe. At once wonderfully lyrical and strikingly acute, Dandarians will further establish Lee Ann Roripaugh as one of the most important and original voices in contemporary Asian American literature.

Download or read book The River Where You Forgot My Name written by Corrie Williamson and published by SIU Press. This book was released on 2019-10-07 with total page 96 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner, Montana Book Award-Honor Book, 2019 The River Where You Forgot My Name travels between early 1800s Virginia and Missouri and present-day western Montana, a place where “bats sail the river of dark.” In their crosscutting, the poems in this collection reflect on American progress; technology, exploration, and environment; and the ever-changing landscape at the intersection of wilderness and civilization. Three of the book’s five sections follow poet Corrie Williamson’s experiences while living for five years in western Montana. The remaining sections are persona poems written in the voice of Julia Hancock Clark, wife of William Clark, who she married soon after he returned from his western expedition with Meriwether Lewis. Julia lived with Clark in the then-frontier town of St. Louis until her early death in 1820. She offers a foil for the poet’s first-person Montana narrative and enriches the historical perspective of the poetry, providing a female voice to counterbalance the often male-centered discovery and frontier narrative. The collection shines with all-too human moments of levity, tragedy, and beauty such as when Clark names a river Judith after his future wife, not knowing that everyone calls her Julia, or when the poet on a hike to Goldbug Hot Springs imagines a mercury-poisoned Lewis waking “with the dawn between his teeth.” Williamson turns a curious and critical eye on the motives and impact of expansionism, unpacking some of the darker ramifications of American hunger for land and resources. These poems combine breathtaking natural beauty with backbreaking human labor, all in the search for something that approaches grace.