The dream of the unified field : selected poems, 1974-1994
Graham, Jorie , 1951-
The dream of the unified field : selected poems, 1974-1994 / Jorie Graham. - 1st ed. - Hopewell, N.J. : Ecco Press , c1995. - 199 p. ; 24 cm.
Graham's complex, faceted poems glint powerfully with compressed energy and suggest another meaning for the term atmospheric pressure. Her rendering of experience yields a dense, layered vision in which simplicity is rarely found and conclusions are likely to be double-edged. In ``Imperialism,'' concerned with shadows and a difficult relationship, she recalls being taken to Calcutta as a child where, ``to know the world,'' she must observe the funeral pyres and later step into the Ganges (``utensils and genitalia and incandescent linens--(I was nine)--''). Elsewhere a photo of a Holocaust atrocity takes on, in its description and its context, a necessary semblance of beauty: "`I`ll give ten thousand dollars to the man/ who proves the holocaust really/ occurred,'" she quotes. Themes and imagery recur: birds, angels, wings, madness; hands at work, passions political and personal. Graham's keen interest in paintings yields a continual shifting of the thin border between art and life. In ``The Phase After History,'' two birds trapped inside a house--which suggests self-consciousness or a page--fly at the windows seeking escape, while on one floor a man takes up a knife to slice off his face. Too compact for a single reading, this selection from previous collections provides several ``self portraits'' that help give her thought grounding. This volume is perfectly orchestrated, each poem extending the poem before it.
1996 Pulitzer Prize winner in poetry
9780880014762
95016572
Poetry, American
PS3557.R214 / D73 1995
811.54 GRA
The dream of the unified field : selected poems, 1974-1994 / Jorie Graham. - 1st ed. - Hopewell, N.J. : Ecco Press , c1995. - 199 p. ; 24 cm.
Graham's complex, faceted poems glint powerfully with compressed energy and suggest another meaning for the term atmospheric pressure. Her rendering of experience yields a dense, layered vision in which simplicity is rarely found and conclusions are likely to be double-edged. In ``Imperialism,'' concerned with shadows and a difficult relationship, she recalls being taken to Calcutta as a child where, ``to know the world,'' she must observe the funeral pyres and later step into the Ganges (``utensils and genitalia and incandescent linens--(I was nine)--''). Elsewhere a photo of a Holocaust atrocity takes on, in its description and its context, a necessary semblance of beauty: "`I`ll give ten thousand dollars to the man/ who proves the holocaust really/ occurred,'" she quotes. Themes and imagery recur: birds, angels, wings, madness; hands at work, passions political and personal. Graham's keen interest in paintings yields a continual shifting of the thin border between art and life. In ``The Phase After History,'' two birds trapped inside a house--which suggests self-consciousness or a page--fly at the windows seeking escape, while on one floor a man takes up a knife to slice off his face. Too compact for a single reading, this selection from previous collections provides several ``self portraits'' that help give her thought grounding. This volume is perfectly orchestrated, each poem extending the poem before it.
1996 Pulitzer Prize winner in poetry
9780880014762
95016572
Poetry, American
PS3557.R214 / D73 1995
811.54 GRA
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