About this title: Gluck presents her 11th collection of poems that takes its name from Averno, a small crater lake in southern Italy regarded by the ancient Romans as the entrance to the underworld.
Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN-13:9780374107420ISBN:0374107424
Description: Good. Purchasing this item supports Pierce County libraries. Thriftbooks and PCL have partnered to help raise additional funds for the library system. Ex-Library book-will contain library markings. Light shelf wear and minimal interior marks. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
Description: Very Good. Great condition for a used book! Minimal wear. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Description: Very Good. Former Library book. Great condition for a used book! Minimal wear. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Edition: 1st Edition
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Farrar Straus Giroux, NY
Date Published: 2006
ISBN-13:9780374107420ISBN:0374107424
Description: Good+ in Very Good Unclipped jacket. A New England Independant Bookstore Since 1974. A solid 1st edition! DJ: some shelfwear and ruffling around teh edges. Text: small closed tear of back board at spine, slightly soiled first few pages, otherwise tight and clean! read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Date Published: 2006
ISBN-13:9780374107420ISBN:0374107424
Description: New. Brand New! Buy with confidence-your satisfaction is guaranteed at B-Logistics! Due to the large scale of our operation, we do not have access to the specific contents/condition of our items. Please note that Expedited shipping is not available at this time. read more
Description: Very good. Hardcover. Has minor wear and/or markings. Minimal Writing. SKU: 22285181 All orders shipped within 1 business day. 14 day money back guarantee ISBN: 9780374107420. read more
Description: Very good. Hardcover. Has minor wear and/or markings. Missing Dust Jacket. SKU: 21626344 All orders shipped within 1 business day. 14 day money back guarantee ISBN: 9780374107420. read more
Description: Very good. Hardcover. Has minor wear and/or markings. Missing Dust Jacket. SKU: 21626353 All orders shipped within 1 business day. 14 day money back guarantee ISBN: 9780374107420. read more
Description: Very good. Hardcover. Has minor wear and/or markings. Missing Dust Jacket. SKU: 21416538 All orders shipped within 1 business day. 14 day money back guarantee ISBN: 9780374107420. read more
Description: Very good. Hardcover. Has minor wear and/or markings. Missing Dust Jacket. SKU: 21626349 All orders shipped within 1 business day. 14 day money back guarantee ISBN: 9780374107420. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York
Date Published: 2006
ISBN-13:9780374107420ISBN:0374107424
Description: Very Good in Good jacket. This book is still in great condition, Binding is still tight and pages are clean. Slight shelf wear to the DJ. read more
"That Gluck voice. Keep trying to understand why it has such a vulnerable authority, like someone wielding a dagger then using it to offer you a piece of fruit. A voice poised between challenge and cowering, distance and closeness, indifference and intimacy. In "Prism," it's the daughters "assignment" to fall in love; an improper "vaccination" leads to passion, desire and the search for love; the lover is "the stranger" in the shock of "the first dawn." There's a lot of attempt at dichotomy: of breaking mother, lover, and daughter into superego, id, and ego; of the soul and the body; of good and bad; death and life. But Gluck often undermines these dichotomies or, at least, subverts them: in "Crater Lake" it is ironically the body and not death that might have betrayed us by making us fear "love." The title of the collection, Averno, as well as this particular poem, "Crater Lake," suggests we are more on the cusp of things, the liminal space of the entranceway to the underworld. And for a book based on the myth of Persephone and, thus, on the earth and the underworld, there is so much mention of sky. This seems a subversion as well. This disorientation feels somehow purposeful, as though we, like Persephone, despite Zeus' promise to allow her to "forget" her passage, half-remember the place between extremes. To quote from "Prism" again: "Then the rain again, erasing / footprints in the damp earth. / An implied path, like / a map without a crossroads."
In addition to "Prism," the first "Persephone The Wanderer" struck a deep chord. These brutal lines especially: "...the tale of Persephone / which should be read / as an argument between the mother and the lover- / the daughter is just meat.""
1.) There's something about the word "soul" that really grates on my poetic sensibilities -- it's weighted and politically/religiously-charged, and yet its definition is so vague it renders the word meaningless, maybe. Or that it reminds me too much of unshowered teenagers.
Anyway, she uses it constantly. Like in this entirely wretched stanza (which ends an otherwise wonderful poem):
To such endless impressions we poets give ourselves absolutely, making, in silence, omen of mere event, until the world reflects the deepest needs of the soul.
2.) The "we poets" is another pet peeve. Why isolate writers into some private charter club? Isn't the whole point that we're trying to find the universal, the connective? And is the meaning of that stanza really limited to poets, anyway?
But now this has turned into a review of the small things I disliked about the book, and really I enjoyed it. It's accessible -- deceptively simple, with beautiful imagery interwoven with mythology and personal narrative. So here is a wonderful segment, that also ends a wonderful poem:
A night in summer. Sounds of a summer storm. The great plates invisibly shifting and changing --
And in the dark room, the lovers sleeping in each other's arms.
We are, each of us, the one who wakens first, who stirs first and sees, there in the first dawn, the stranger."
"The last word on the liminal. The "Persephone" poems are stunning, in particular, but different poems become my favorite, depending on the hour. This would be a reasonable choice for any trip where you were limited to one book. To the point, but much to ponder."
"At the start of this book we learn this: "Averno. Ancient name Avernus. A small crater lake, ten miles west of Naples, Italy; regarded by the ancient Romans as the entrance to the underworld." This collection of linked poems is about passing between worlds: childhood and adulthood, death and life, existence and memory, and seasons, too; it uses the myth of Persephone to play with some of those passings. I like the mix of mythic and not, lines like this, about riding the subway and reading: "you are not alone,/the poem said,/in the dark tunnel" (p 14), and then the wry humor and intelligence of the mythic poems like "Persephone the Wanderer," which reminds the reader: "You are allowed to like/no one, you know. The characters/are not people." (p 16). Other highlights: the wintry world of the second section of "Landscape," "A Myth of Innocence" and "A Myth of Devotion," the first stanza of "Telescope," which describes the moment of disorientation after looking through a telescope, coming back to earth when you've been among the stars-which isn't too dissimilar to the moment of emerging from a book you've been lost in."
We guarantee every item's condition, as described on Alibris. If you are not satisfied that an item is as described, return your purchase for a refund.
rating
