Post by moira on May 16, 2008 21:54:33 GMT 2
Embers: A Novel in Poems
Terry Wolverton
"In voice-rich, era-evoking poetry, this autobiographical 'novel-in-poems' spans a century in the life of one broken, fierce, incendiary family. A mosaic of thwarted dreams and tangled loyalties, Embers is nevertheless always awake to the twin redemptive potentials of grief and recognition. Wolverton unerringly captures the moment when events stamp a character in such a way that decides the course not only of his or her own life, but all the lives they in turn create, resolving in the poet's own. Beginning with Huron tribal mythology and ranging through Detroit's salt-city frontier days and, in a particularly stunning suite of poems, its more recent and no less violent urban history, Embers creates an unforgettable portrait of a century, and a city, and a family struggling toward wholeness."
-- Janet Fitch, author, White Oleander
Sample poem:
House Afire
1.
Here at last was warmth
enough to hold her
a thin vein of red
along the dim hallway
tendrils curling
orange and blue.
Faces spit from flames
and she grinned back
as curtains leapt
to lick the ceiling
glass panes burst
from their tidy frames.
2.
…they'd given her
the gas can at the filling
station no questions a woman
on foot flapping overcoat
revealing torn dingy
nightdress the attendant
flushed offered her a lift
she refused clutched
the metal spout against
her hip inhaling
its perfume careful
not to spill the long walk home…
3.
She set the parakeet free.
It perched, blinking, on its cage door
until she had to grab hold
carry it to the gaping window - its heart
hammered in her palm - throw it
to the sky. Remember how to fly.
1937
Marie
Reviews for Embers:
"Embers is at once dense and delicious, crammed with sorrow and drama, a marvelous American tale, a haunting work of art. The pure craft of the thing is fascinating and daunting. This is certainly Wolverton's masterpiece-- the poem, the novel, she was put on earth to write."
-- Carolyn See, author, Making a Literary Life
"The only way this poignant work could have been accomplished is from the other side, through distance, alchemy, love. There is elegant survival here, the widening of compassion; house fires set by individuals, and the larger conflagration of the Detroit race riots-acts seeking reparation out of powerlessness. We have our phoenix as well, the voice of the writer moving through her history (and ours) into the present, masterfully re-creating her own mythos. Indeed, the reader is steeped in the coming together of American mythologies and grateful for this new one that sweeps across the dark and light, the snake and cradle of a nation's and a family's blood-and-bone survival. The cumulative effect of the poems is one of awesome respect for the human spirit. Wolverton's verse-novel is a force, essential in each of its separate parts, haunting in its relevancy."
-- Maureen Seaton, author, Venus Examines Her Breast
"As a novel, the poems of Embers tell many stories woven of fact and fiction, challenging all possible "master narratives". Native (Huron) history, working class tribulations, the Detroit riots, several generations' family trauma all combine to make Wolverton's embers glow with a driving passion. Above all, this books is a commitment to the beauties and scintillating particulars of a generous language. This is a tremendous weave of site and humanity."
-- Anne Waldman, Co-Founder the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University and author of
Vow To Poetry.
About the author:
Terry Wolverton is the author of six books. Of her most recent, the poetry collection Shadow and Praise, poet Gerald Locklin wrote, “These poems vibrate with controlled breathing, like American mantras infused with Eastern scriptural spirituality. I have the highest admiration for this achievement by a poet and human being who has spent a lifetime in preparation for such a crowning achievement.” Embers is a novel-in-poems about which poet Anne Waldman has said, “…this book is a commitment to the beauties and scintillating particulars of a generous language. This is a tremendous weave of site and humanity.” Embers was a finalist for the PEN USA Litfest Poetry Award and the Lambda Book Award. Insurgent Muse: Life and Art at the Woman's Building, a memoir published in 2002 by City Lights Books, was named one of the “Best Books of 2002” by the Los Angeles Times, and was the winner of the 2003 Publisher's Triangle Judy Grahn Award, and a finalist for the Lambda Book Award. Her novel, Bailey's Beads, was a finalist in the American Library Association's Gay and Lesbian Book Awards for 1997; Kirkus Reviews said of it, “her ambitious debut…features…a stark but melodious prose style…confident style and affecting characters.” She has also published two other collections of poetry: Black Slip, a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award in 1993, and Mystery Bruise. A new novel, The Labrys Reunion, will be published by Spinsters Ink in 2009. Her fiction, poetry, essays and drama have been published in periodicals internationally, including Crab Orchard Review, Prairie Schooner, Glimmer Train Stories, The Stinging Fly, and Zyzzyva, and widely anthologized.
She has also edited several successful compilations: Harbinger: Poetry and Fiction by Los Angeles Writers; Indivisible: Short Fiction by West Coast Gay and Lesbian Writers; Blood Whispers: L.A. Writers on AIDS, Volumes 1 and 2; the Lambda Literary Award-winning His: Brilliant New Fiction by Gay Men and Hers: Brilliant New Fiction by Lesbians, volumes 1, 2, and 3; the series Circa 2000: Lesbian Fiction At the Millennium and Gay Fiction At the Millennium, and the poetry anthology, Mischief, Caprice, and Other Poetic Strategies. Most recently, she co-edited, with Sondra Hale, the anthology From Site to Vision: the Woman's Building in Contemporary Culture, published on the Internet at www.womansbuilding.org.
In 2000, she began collaborating as a writer with choreographer Heidi Duckler and Collage Dance Theater on the site-specific performances subVersions, Under Eden, After Eden, and Cover Story. She is currently working on adapting Embers as a jazz opera.
Terry has taught creative writing for over twenty-five years; in 1997, she founded Writers at Work, a center for creative writing in Los Angeles, where she offers several weekly workshops in fiction and poetry. She is currently an Associate Faculty Mentor for the MFA Writing Program at Antioch University Los Angeles. She spent thirteen years at the Woman's Building, a public center for women's culture, eventually serving as its executive director. She is the recipient of numerous grants and awards for her artistic and community contributions, most recently, a California Arts Council Artist Fellowship for Poetry and a COLA Fellowship from the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs. She is also a certified instructor of Kundalini Yoga.
Website: www.terrywolverton.xbuild.com
ISBN: 1-888996-72-2, 172 pages, $15.95
Red Hen Press, tradepaper
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