Arielle Greenberg and I were on a delightful panel at AWP in Seattle: on poetry and desire. I'd read her poems here and there, but not read one of her books in toto, and now I regret the delay, as I've relished reading her first collection and now eagerly look forward to more. Here are some favourite passages:
We (the clown, the doll, the murderer and I) are in love.
With the moon.
She ascends: the sky purples, clouds, she rises, now grinning,
becoming a burning door. We love her still.
We (the clown, the doll, the murderer and I) are in love.
With the moon.
She ascends: the sky purples, clouds, she rises, now grinning,
becoming a burning door. We love her still.
from "Afterwards, There Will Be a Hallway"
I know thirst very well because I once belonged to that organization.
from "The Expert"
I've been teaching English at a two-year college and it isn't going well.
Every single one of my students is somehow a furious dolphin.
opening lines of "Teaching English at a Two-Year College"
To debate an aesthetic issue is to go shopping for a party
dress. You cannot come over till you have something interesting.
last stanza of "Pathos: a ghazal"
The project that loves to hang its head out the car window and smell the ocean
from "A Proposal for a Longer Work
(Preferring the Dunes)"
They were free to be startled by their bondage.
from "Startle"
there is us
& there is a valley & there is the tight song the air forgot
from "happy holy"
The people who sleep with their socks on,
the day is over to them, adoring and abandoned.
The inside of her long body is a yellow flower.
Breathe here, in the small hole your life has made.
from "This Train"
I do love my breasts. they are so soft.
but I love my hair more. it's my rosetti.
from "The Teeth of Betty Page"
Night came, blue night. It knew all the terrible choices. It covered the girl like a shawl.
*
What a catastrophe! Nothing all over, blue shawls, oven mornings. The girl was in a fit, fit of smiles. What was in her pocket? What terrible jealousy was in her mouth?
Come, she said. Come choose the terrible choice.
from "The Girl"
To be a magician's assistant, you must first believe in the real as a Fact in itself. Without the real, there is no awe at its breakage. Lucy was trained in basic chemistry and liked large dogs. She was as real as they come.
*
"There is something magical about this realism," the audience exclaims, delighted, somewhat dopey on little paper cups of swirled ice cream served with tongue depressor spoons glued to the lids. "It's the chocolate," Lucy says flatly, removing the knife from between her teeth. "I invented it to make you happy."
from "The Secret History of Chocolate"
Are you male or just malnourished?
from "To My Beaux-Artsy Bedfellow"
We make marks, and in this way we are like the species of fish who leave their ink when they are frightened.
from "Berlin Series"
In front of the house, the townspeople have gathered for the nod-out into plush plush love, so easy and out.
from "Nostalgia, Cheryl, Is the Best Heroin"