Gnawed Bones

Peggy Shumaker

Publication Year: 2010

From wildfire and war to bleached reefs and human frailty, Peggy Shumaker’s new poems meditate on mortality. Her poems speak with elegaic force for lost languages, lost ancestors, lost ways of being. This work sharpens the edges of our perception, drawing on the inner life, on secrets that keep us alive. With language as lyrical as the natural world, the poems in Gnawed Bones nourish us.

Published by: Red Hen Press

Contents
Search Inside This Book
Book Details

Worldwide, reefs suffer wherever crown-of-thorns starfish take over. The only creature that finds them delicious, the only one that can slip its long foot underneath the crown-of-thorn’s formidable armor, flip it, then gorge on the shining delicacies within the star is this: the Trident’s Trumpet, ...

Section II: Mystery Aisle

pdf icon Download PDF (231.3 KB)
pp. 27-28

The Provider

pdf icon Download PDF (49.0 KB)
pp. 29-31

Desert Odyssey

pdf icon Download PDF (24.9 KB)
pp. 32-

Touch and Go

pdf icon Download PDF (47.6 KB)
pp. 33-34

Always the Entertainer

pdf icon Download PDF (25.8 KB)
pp. 35-36

Rinsing that Tomato

pdf icon Download PDF (24.9 KB)
pp. 37-

You’re Here

pdf icon Download PDF (25.7 KB)
pp. 38-39

Chickens

pdf icon Download PDF (25.0 KB)
pp. 40-

Swallows

pdf icon Download PDF (47.7 KB)
pp. 41-42

Ha Ha Ha

pdf icon Download PDF (24.9 KB)
pp. 43-

No Sign

pdf icon Download PDF (47.9 KB)
pp. 44-45

My Father Never

pdf icon Download PDF (47.7 KB)
pp. 46-47

Beyond Words, This Language

pdf icon Download PDF (24.7 KB)
pp. 48-

Radio Control

pdf icon Download PDF (25.7 KB)
pp. 49-50

No One Knows How to Speak

pdf icon Download PDF (25.0 KB)
pp. 51-

Albóndigas

pdf icon Download PDF (26.0 KB)
pp. 52-53

Portal

pdf icon Download PDF (69.1 KB)
pp. 54-56

My father’s fifth wife was the only one he really married. The others were legal, sure. But they weren’t binding. Maybe his fifth wife was so thoroughly married he had to be, too. Concepción Álvarez Sotelo Howe. His true mate, Connie. For the last quarter century of his life, she taught my father to be part of a family. ...

Section III: Our Mother of Sorrows

pdf icon Download PDF (232.2 KB)
pp. 57-58

Land Fraud Nosebleed

pdf icon Download PDF (27.2 KB)
pp. 59-61

Desert Climbing

pdf icon Download PDF (25.0 KB)
pp. 62-

Better Homes

pdf icon Download PDF (47.7 KB)
pp. 63-64

Go to the Broom Closet and Pick Out a Stick

pdf icon Download PDF (25.3 KB)
pp. 65-

Horny Toads

pdf icon Download PDF (24.9 KB)
pp. 66-

Asthma

pdf icon Download PDF (25.2 KB)
pp. 67-

Our Mother of Sorrows

pdf icon Download PDF (25.3 KB)
pp. 68-

Sky of Souls

pdf icon Download PDF (25.7 KB)
pp. 69-70

Upset Woman

pdf icon Download PDF (46.9 KB)
pp. 71-

You Should Know Better

pdf icon Download PDF (49.4 KB)
pp. 72-74

Glyphs on a Limestone Stela

pdf icon Download PDF (25.1 KB)
pp. 75-

All the Mustaches on All the Judases

pdf icon Download PDF (46.9 KB)
pp. 76-

The Aroma of Rain in the Desert

pdf icon Download PDF (24.9 KB)
pp. 77-

Mango

pdf icon Download PDF (24.7 KB)
pp. 78-

Ocotillo

pdf icon Download PDF (24.8 KB)
pp. 79-

Norwegian Wood

pdf icon Download PDF (47.3 KB)
pp. 80-

By the time I scored an almost-mint Hard Day’s Night poster for fifteen cents at the swap meet, nobody plastered her walls anymore with John, Paul, George, Ringo. Survival cliques weren’t formed anymore by girls who thought Ringo was cutest. He wasn’t. But those girls would never fit in with Paul’s group ...