Post by shayepoet on Jul 30, 2008 4:54:22 GMT 2
What Feeds Us
Diane Lockward
Winner of the Quentin R. Howard Poetry Prize
Lockward explores the feminine mystique in her second full-length collection of sensual and imaginative poems.
As they consider the various ways in which we are nourished or not nourished, these poems are, as Kim Addonizio said of Lockward's previous collection, Eve's Red Dress, "irreverent, ravenous for the world, and unabashedly female."
Sample Poem
Annelida
My husband is saving the worms again.
All night, heavy rain, now the driveway crawls
with worms, afraid of drowning, but so dumb
they will broil to death in the sun, except
for my husband who picks them up,
one by one, places them on the still-wet grass,
then drives to work without even washing
his hands. I imagine him in his office sniffing
his fingers for the earthy scent of worms,
and I remember being 6 and loving
worms, collecting them in a worm bin,
a five-pound pickle bucket, so I understand
his affection. I filled my bin with a bedding
of peat moss and soil, soaked and squeezed it
by hand, punctured breathing holes in the lid.
I took a trowel into the garden and dug
for worms. Pink, gray, and reddish-brown.
The long fat ones I loved best, the way they shrunk
and stretched when touched. The way they reared
their heads. I fed them chicken mash, decayed leaves,
and kitchen waste. I wanted my worms to live.
No eyes, no ears, no backbone, no legs.
Each a tube inside a tube, like a knife in a sheath.
Hermaphroditic. Conjoined by a slime tube.
My worms multiplied. I imagined the five pairs
of hearts, their blood, red like mine.
This was nothing to do with sex—I was 6!
This was tactile, olfactory. I wanted the feel, the smell
of worms in my hands, on my skin.
Sometimes I lay down on the floor and let worms
crawl across my belly. Once I put a worm in my mouth.
When I was 7, I upended the bin and freed
the worms, imagined them sliding
through the earth, finding their way home.
Some days I can hardly wait until my husband
comes home, and puts his hands on my skin.
Praise for What Feeds Us:
In this brimming collection Diane Lockward's considerable wit engages both what is askew and awry and what to a lesser eye might seem to be standing up straight. She never takes you where you expect to go--that is part of her talent and her sassy wisdom. She is an original and a delight.
---Baron Wormser
What Feeds Us is sometimes humorous and sometimes heartbreaking. Diane Lockward's language is both plain-spoken and rich, lush. This is a wonderful book that might not nourish your body but certainly will nourish your heart.
---Thomas Lux
In these sparkling poems, Diane Lockward takes life as it comes and finds nourishment in it all: succulence of the peach, redolence of the pear, the "green grape of sorrow." I love these poems for their craft, sensuality and energy. Like high-wire acts of language and imagination, they almost leap in the air and come down again on the wire, balancing between witty and dark, personal and invented, idea and emotion.
---Patricia Fargnoli
On-Line Reviews:
"In this, her second collection of poems, Lockward considers the things that feed her in both the physical and metaphoric sense. Readers will find a sensuous feast of fruits and vegetables, of bees and birds, of words and wit. Along with this, Lockward brings an appreciation for language and those surprises that make her poems truly memorable. . . ."
Karla Huston at Rattle
Entire review: tinyurl.com/5bk3g3
"Lockward's words, whether spicy radishes or bocconi dolci on the lips, reveal timeless themes and obsessions: the punitive father, the breakdown of a mother, the waiting of the womb to fill, the accidents that may or do befall our children. The joyous celebration of food, drink, love; the struggle against the feared; the bittersweet meditations on what is lost; the metamorphosis of fire and passion. . . ."
Judith Montgomery at Valparaiso Poetry Review
Entire review: tinyurl.com/5do2th
*****
Interviews with Diane Lockward:
Sondra Gash, Valparaiso Poetry Review
tinyurl.com/67jrdz
Elizabeth Glixman, Eclectica
tinyurl.com/5dxrjq
Sondra Gash, Valparaiso Poetry Review
tinyurl.com/67jrdz
Elizabeth Glixman, Eclectica
tinyurl.com/5dxrjq
*****
About the author:
Diane Lockward is the author of What Feeds Us (Wind Publications, 2006) which was awarded the Quentin R. Howard Poetry Prize. She is also the author of Eve's Red Dress (Wind Publications, 2003), and a chapbook, Against Perfection (Poets Forum Press, 1998). Her poems have been published in several anthologies, including Poetry Daily: 366 Poems from the World's Most Popular Poetry Website and Garrison Keillor's Good Poems for Hard Times. Her poems have appeared in such journals as Beloit Poetry Journal, Spoon River Poetry Review, and Prairie Schooner. Her work has been nominated for several Pushcart Prizes, featured on Poetry Daily and Verse Daily, and read by Garrison Keillor on NPR's The Writer's Almanac. She has performed in a number of poetry festivals, including the 2007 Burlington Book Festival and the 2006 Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival. She is the recipient of a 2003 Poetry Fellowship from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. A former high school English teacher, Diane now works as a poet-in-the-schools.
Website: www.dianelockward.com
Blog: www.dianelockward.blogspot.com
ISBN: 1893239578, 90 pages, $15.00
Wind Publications
Amazon: tinyurl.com/66jrrl
Wind Pub: windpub.com/order.htm
Barnes & Noble: tinyurl.com/5jjsc7