In this Book
- Black Aperture: Poems
- Book
- 2013
- Published by: Louisiana State University Press
- Series: Walt Whitman Award of the Academy of American Poets
summary
In his moving debut collection, Matt Rasmussen faces the tragedy of his brother's suicide, refusing to focus on the expected pathos, blurring the edge between grief and humor. In "Outgoing," the speaker erases his brother's answering machine message to save his family from "the shame of dead you / answering calls." In other poems, once-ordinary objects become dreamlike. A buried light bulb blooms downward, "a flower / of smoldering filaments." A refrigerator holds an evening landscape, "a tinfoil lake," "vegetables / dying in the crisper." Destructive and redemptive, Black Aperture opens to the complicated entanglements of mourning: damage and healing, sorrow and laughter, and torment balanced with moments of relief.
Table of Contents
Download Full Book
- I
- Trajectory
- pp. 3-12
- After Suicide
- pp. 4-5
- The Orange Leaves
- pp. 6-7
- And God Said
- pp. 11-12
- I Am Not a Poem
- pp. 13-22
- Field with Whales
- pp. 15-24
- After Suicide
- pp. 16-25
- In Whoever’s Hotel Room this Is
- pp. 17-26
- Vacation Cage
- pp. 18-27
- Monet as a Verb
- pp. 19-28
- Chekhov’s Gun
- pp. 22-31
- II
- Elegy in X Parts
- pp. 25-40
- III
- Land O’ Lakes
- pp. 44-53
- An Uncertain Prayer
- pp. 54-63
- O Cremulator
- pp. 57-58
- After Suicide
- pp. 59-60
- Reverse Suicide
- pp. 61-70
- A Horse Grazes in My Shadow
- pp. 62-71
- Acknowledgments
- pp. 63-64
Additional Information
ISBN
9780807150870
Related ISBN(s)
9780807150863
MARC Record
OCLC
860626528
Pages
72
Launched on MUSE
2013-10-24
Language
English
Open Access
No