Post by shayepoet on Jul 19, 2008 23:50:44 GMT 2
Small Knots
Kelli Russell Agodon
Small Knots is a tender and terrifying collection of poems that maps the progress of a disease, celebrates the family and life's daily small joys, and meditates on what connects us to the world.
"Agodon's debut introduces us to the wild beating of apple-hearts and other songs of the body--both blessed and betrayed. These are necessary, exacting poems that render me stunned and happily spent--grateful for the blossom
and burst I find on each page."
--Aimee Nezhukumatathil, author of Miracle Fruit & At the Drive-In Volcano (Tupelo Press)
Sample poem:
How Killer Blue Irises Spread
—Misheard health report on NPR
The quiet ones, the flowers
the neighbors said
kept to themselves,
Iris getagunandkillus, shoots
and rhizomes reaching
beneath the fence.
The shifty ones,
Mickey Blue Iris, the tubers
that pretend to be dormant
then spread late at night into
the garden of evil and no good.
They know hell, their blue flames
fooling van Gogh, the knife
he stuck into soil before he sliced
the bulbs in three, nights
he spent painting in a mad heat.
They swell before the cut
and divide of autumn.
An entire field of tulips,
flattened. Daylilies found
like lean bodies across the path.
The wild blue iris claims
responsibility, weaves through
the gladioli, into the hothouse
where the corpse flower blooms
for a single day, its scent
of death calling to the flies.
From The Atlantic Monthly: tinyurl.com/5cbth8
*****
*****
Other poems from Small Knots:
Rock Salt Plum (Four Poems): tinyurl.com/5svcmg
Poets Against the War (Of a Forgetful Sea): tinyurl.com/5zjeus
Raves and Reviews for Small Knots:
"Some of these poems suggest Karmic knots; others tangled relationships -- of people with each other, of people with themselves, of the raveling and unraveling of taboos down the generations. Most poignant are the taboos that have denied whole centuries of women the right to claim either a body or a self of her own...."
-- Sandy McKinney, Alsop Review tinyurl.com/63zjfl
"In these refreshingly honest poems, Agodon reminds us that nothing-not 'the sky, tired of living above us / drifts down,' not our own blotted-out history, with its 'page of deaths. . . full of question marks,' not even cancer-can stop us from having a life where Spicebush Swallowtails land in our hair, where our hips 'curve with the universe,' where 'faith is the song that continues to play / after the band has gone home.'"
--Martha Silano, author of What The Truth Tastes Like (Nightshade Press)
"These delightful, accessible poems are unafraid of exploring some of life’s more perilous regions: motherhood, suicide, the death of parents & grandparents, a breast cancer diagnosis and treatment; as well as its more mundane: piñatas, lemons, hatbands -- and always with clarity, humor, and an unflinching belief in the power of language if not to heal, to bring closure."
--Peter Pereira, author of Saying the World (Copper Canyon Press)
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About the author:
Kelli Russell Agodon was born and raised in Seattle and educated at the University of Washington and Pacific Lutheran University's Rainier Writing Workshop where she received her MFA in creative writing. She is the author of two books of poems, Small Knots (2004) and Geography, winner of the Washington State Floating Bridge Press Chapbook Award.[/b][/blockquote]
Her poems have appeared in the Atlantic Monthly, Prairie Schooner, North American Review, Image, 5 a.m, Meridian, Bellevue Literary Journal, Crab Orchard Review, North American Review, Calyx, and many others. She is a recipient of two Washington State Artist Trust GAP grants, the James Hearst Poetry Prize, the William Stafford Award, the Carlin Aden Award for formal verse, a Soapstone Writer's Residency, and most recently, a grant from the Puffin Foundation for her work towards peace and as a poetry editor with the broadside series: The Making of Peace. Currently, she is working on an anthology about motherhood with photographer, Elisha Rain and is one of two editors for the journal, Crab Creek Review in Seattle.
Website
Blog
Verse Daily
ISBN: 1-932339-27-2, 88 pages, $17.00 retail
Cherry Grove Collections, 2004
Trade paper
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Booksense: tinyurl.com/5sttpu
Amazon: tinyurl.com/5l97v9
Kelli Agodon (signed copy): www.agodon.com/books ($16 includes shipping):[/font]