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"'On a day fresh as a haircut' writes Beth Roberts, 'I left the family for the field. / I looked hard for the body.' This is a book of setting out, of looking for the body--familial, sexual, spiritual, poetic--from which we were somehow, long ago, severed. These poems inhabit, unflinchingly, the "invented and inflicted holes" of a consciousness that is by turns grieving, ironic, self-lacerating, celebratory. Roberts' faith in the renovating powers of lyric tradition is as anxious as it is necessary. This book is gorgeous and true." (Mark Levine)"--
List of contents
When we break for the spires and tall grass together
Contents
Evolvers
At the penultimate moment 6
In the holy polar vortex 7
Googling Earth 8
The land of reason 9
They who make the quiet quieter 10
Spotted deer 11
On impact 12
Back to the villa 13
The wager 14
One way 15
Nostalgia 16
White-throated sparrows, boy sopranos 17
Sober 18
Rough housing 19
As it melts 20
A pair of airs 21
2-step round and reel 22
Just as long as space is 23
The work of thy hands 24
For all things now living 25
The bright side 26
Cleave 27
Chimera
Loud 29
This is not a poem 30
Like a person 31
"Describe yourself using three words." 32
I make a joke 33
"Do you have any questions?" 34
Liars poetica 35
In possible 36
In these parts you created worrisome places 37
With her 38
Movement 39
Like a burning understory 40
A song for some children 41
FAQs 42
Couplet 43
"In its acclimation to climate change, the chimera shines." 44
"What is your mother's maiden name?" 45
Just a moment 46
It's been real 47
Of spring 48
Of nature's people 49
Putti
Winter light 51
Fight club at the museum 52
Skull thought 53
Another memento 54
Skull remembers 55
Look 56
About the author
Beth Roberts grew up a pastor's kid, mostly in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. For the 30+ years since graduating from the Iowa Writers' Workshop she's been living in the Illinois-Iowa Quad Cities, but will return to the U.P. in the spring. Her first book of poems, Brief Moral History in Blue, was published by New Issues in 2001. During the many years since it's been other struggles and joys, including work as the editorial director at Augustana College in Rock Island, Illinois.
