Sunday 12 April 2015

Maureen Thorson's My Resignation (Shearsman, 2014)

On Wednesday I heard Maureen Thorson read at an off-site AWP event, Saturday I bought her book at the Small Press Distribution booth at the book fair, and I've read it over the last two days. Here are some favourite passages:


O questor at the doorstep of high summer,
the weathers of a heartbreak
left me red-eyed, wary,
              transparent to the winds,

tawdry terrors
underlying my tenderness.

from "A Man for All Seasons"


You've come down where your heart lies, 
from the great cold enclosure, 
a southerly course.



             At the head of no army,
             with one smile
             and two hands to make your case.

             Past several rivers,
             bright medals of your intention.

from "Follow the Leader"


Alphabetizing ourselves while azaleas go gaga.
Hot pink shockwaves drowning out the yard.

from "There Will Come the Great Reshelving"


The idea(l) of the unconditional

             leaves me waiting at the window
             to glimpse that singularity--

a flash in the middle distance
             where 
             the watcher and the watched one
might converge.

end of "Meet Me at the Vanishing Point"


Curious to thrive.

last line of "The Sun Sets Every Day"


Thinking of collision. Hands arranging my hair
             as red branches frame the window.
Teeth white as flashbulbs. Limbs clash,
             entangle.

             Petals no one tells apart.

end of "Closer Than They Appear"


Not to be alone--

             a shivery, upwelling pleasure.

end of "'Applause for This Shared Vigilance'"


Every emotion carries the seed
             of its loss, excruciating bloom.

from "Self-Portrait as Tragedienne"


              In it to win
the beautiful wreck.

end of "Jackpot"


(All along the fenceline, I uproot
              encroaching morning glories.
              I throw 
their twining corpses over my shoulder.) 

from "On Marriage"


The weather report calls for continued transcendence:
Lengthening evenings, gilding the telephone wires
as they dip over the yards, rattling slightly
with the feral hum of air conditioners.

from "Trophy Life"


When I kiss you, the night kisses back,
                           velvety, intolerable,
                           a greedy creature
lurching comically on rubbery wings.

from "Through the Looking Glass"


Whiling the green evening away in a restaurant
             located adjacent to the possible.

from "Smorgasbord"









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