Allegheny, Monongahela

Erinn Batykefer

Publication Year: 2009

Using the confluence of rivers in Pittsburgh as a metaphorical lens, Allegheny, Monongahela probes the ruinous misalignment between the external and internal lives of two sisters and their childhood in Western Pennsylvania. Their complex and difficult relationship is the spine of the collection, told obliquely through a series of sonnets and ekphrastic meditations on the paintings of Georgia O'Keeffe: the ways in which they separately navigate a violent family history that reverberates through their present and futures; their polarized impulses toward creativity and self-destruction. Rooted in a mutable, watery landscape that is not consistently recognizable, Allegheny, Monongahela investigates the collisions between the world and the self, the fissured identities that result, and the ways in which art may heal or fail to heal the cracks.

Published by: Red Hen Press

Contents
Search Inside This Book
Book Details

Erinn Batykefer’s work has earned numerous awards, including a Martha Meier Renk Distinguished Poetry Fellowship at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and a Stadler Poetry Fellowship at Bucknell University, where she also served as Stadler Associate Editor of West Branch. She is a native of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. ...

E-ISBN-13: 9781597093736
Print-ISBN-13: 9781597091343
Print-ISBN-10: 1597091340

Page Count: 80
Publication Year: 2009

Edition: First

Allegheny, Monongahela

Title Page, Copyright, Acknowledgments, Dedication

Contents

Part I

Dog Poem

Part II: The Sisters

Apple Family

Eureka Vacuum

Photo Album

Invisible Childhood

Cicada Year

Pink and Yellow Hollyhocks

Camera Obscura

Part III

White Camellia

The Funeral

Death in the Family

Work

The Inheritance

Egyptology

Heirloom Recipe

Part IV: Leeward

The Red Single

First Boyfriend

Two Yellow Leaves

Night-Blooming Cereus

Blue B and the Train at Ten O’clock

Red Hills with White Cloud

Pittsburgh as Self-Portrait I

Part V

Pittsburgh as Self-Portrait II

Coming into Opera

The Big One

The Whiteout

Wet Drape

Allegheny Love Letter

X-ray

Part VI: One, Vanishing

Haute Couture

Novena

The Last Natural Blonde in the World

The Good Girl

Before You Wake

Snowmelt

Clam Shell

Part VII

Night from Above

Dénouement

The Experiment

Sky with Flat White Cloud

Horizontal Horse’s or Mule’s Skull with Feather

Watershed

In O’Keeffe’s From The Lake, No. 3,

Notes

About the Author

Research Areas

Recommend

Related Content

Welcome to Project MUSE

Connect with Project MUSE

Cover 1

Cover 2

Cover 3