Post by shayepoet on Jul 13, 2008 1:52:54 GMT 2
Horses and the Human Soul
Judith Barrington
"The Poem," writes Judith Barrington, "has lodged in my heart like a stone in the shoe." It is the perfect image for recollection. Here are the horses of her English childhood and the outbreak of World War II filtered through family reminiscence, her coming of age, the disastrous marriage and her self-acceptance as a lesbian. In the brilliant, excruciating title poem, undercover investigators watch but do not interfere as killers break the leg of a racehorse; the poet seeks to understand how savagery can coexist with intellectual detachment. When the crowbar strikes, she asks, what happens to the human soul? Her voice is lyrical, her intelligence palpable throughout this book.
-- Maxine Kumin
Sample poem:
Crows
Crows startle the clouds
with grievance never resolved
and warnings blurted into thin air.
Once in a while, the cries of all those who tried to survive
pour from the funnels of their throats.
No wonder we never really listen.
Like most animals, crows tell the truth:
working hard to penetrate our tiny tubular ears,
they cackle on telephone lines while we watch TV.
Once I did listen to a crow, but even when I had heard
his whole story, there was nothing I could do.
Next, I thought, I'd have to listen to squirrels and coyotes.
I like to think I deal with my share of rotten truths
but I couldn't bear to kneel down in damp grass
and listen to the hedgehog or the mole.
Raves and reviews for Horses and the Human Soul:
“In Judith Barrington’s striking collection, Horses and the Human Soul, human emotions come ushered and accompanied by animal companions, especially the horses this speaker loves. Here they are witnesses, companions to the spirit, and as vulnerably mortal as human beings. Socially and politically alert, lamenting and celebrating, Barrington’s passionate poems inscribe the broad range of her affections.”
—Mark Doty
“Judith Barrington’s Horses and the Human Soul gives readers a glimpse of the powerful connections that can exist between nature and humanity and the potential for that connection to be transforming.”
—Prairie Schooner
“These stunning poems find moral high ground in the world of nature and animals without falsifying that world.... The title poem is concerned with questions of responsibility and evil in the human world. Based on a true story of an insurance scam that involved criminals breaking a thoroughbred’s leg while undercover investigators watched in order to make their case, the poem asks with heartbreaking clarity: Did it occur to them then, as the man led the mare back to his friend with the crowbar, that they could stop this before it happened? How to stop wrongs before they happen is a profoundly moral question. Barrington makes powerful poetry of that question.”
—Barbara Drake, Calyx
Interview with Judith Barrington:
"Articulation: A Deeper Kind of Knowing," Triplopia
www.judithbarrington.com/interviews/index.html
About the author:
Judith Barrington is the author of three collections of poetry, including Horses and the Human Soul
(2004) published by Story Line Press, and a recent chapbook, Postcard from the Bottom of the Sea.
Her previous two poetry collections were History and Geography (The Eighth Mountain Press, 1989), finalist for the Oregon Book Award, and Trying to be an Honest Woman (The Eighth Mountain Press, 1985).
She has also written Lifesaving: A Memoir, which won the 2001 Lambda Book Award and was a finalist for the PEN/Martha Albrand Award for the Art of the Memoir.
Her text: Writing the Memoir: From Truth to Art, is widely used in creative writing programs across the U.S. and in Australia. Her poetry and creative nonfiction has appeared in numerous journals, including The Kenyon Review, Poetry London, The Bridport Prize Anthology, Sonora Review, The Portland Review, Prairie Schooner, and others.
She has won many awards including The Dulwich International Festival Poetry Prize (U.K.), The Clackamas Review Poetry Prize, The Looking Glass Spring Poetry Contest, The A.C.L.U. of Oregon's Freedom of Expression Award and, with her partner, The Stuart Holbrook Award for services to the literary community of Oregon from Literary Arts Inc. She has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize three times.
Website: www.judithbarrington.com
ISBN 1-58654-040-8, 95 pages, $14.00
Story Line Press, 2004
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