In this Book
- Grand & Arsenal
- Book
- 2012
- Published by: University of Iowa Press
- Series: Iowa Poetry Prize
Grand & Arsenal begins “Bless me I am not myself,” but it is not long before the probability of being blessed is revealed to be as remote as the concept of a whole self. Thus begins the book’s defining struggle, enacted by a multitude of voices which move from rush to stumble and back again—meanwhile using all the tools we as a culture use to hold fear at arm’s length.
We hear a familiar irony, as in “On a trip West, porn in the hotel room. I can take or leave it. The climax that puts me in the seats? World’s end.” We hear humor, as in “I believed in . . . / . . . a certain apocalypse not so much foretold as crafted / by large-brained monkeys.” We hear understatement, as in “knowing it does not matter / in the grand—she would say scheme, I would say / mishap—.” Most importantly, though, these poems allow for the fleeting triumph of an undefended voice, which appears often to emerge tentatively from a sort of exhausted collapse.
Table of Contents
- Title Page, Copyright, Dedication
- pp. i-viii
- Part One
- Oracle Weather
- pp. 4-5
- Keeper, Keeper
- pp. 6-8
- Atomic Clock
- pp. 9-19
- The Book of Matthew
- pp. 20-25
- Seed Vault
- pp. 26-30
- Part Two
- Make of Her Peril a Figure
- pp. 34-35
- Empire Coat
- pp. 36-38
- Little Ornaments
- pp. 45-48
- Part Three
- The Book of Agatha
- pp. 53-55
- Doppelganger
- p. 56
- Implanted Memories
- p. 57
- Vernal, Utah
- p. 58
- The Palace at 4 A.M.
- p. 59
- Sea Voyage
- pp. 60-61
- In the Exclusion Zone
- pp. 62-63
- Letter to a Young Poet
- pp. 64-65
- All the Way from Here
- pp. 69-72
- Postscript
- pp. 73-76
Additional Information
Copyright
2012