Post by shayepoet on Oct 11, 2008 5:11:06 GMT 2
Lit Windowpane
Suzanne Frischkorn[/b]
"In a time when there is no greater question than the question of environmental survival,
Suzanne Frischkorn's LIT WINDOWPANE reminds us of the necessity of unadorned and unapologetic praise for
the natural world. In language spare and well-keeled, Frischkorn's poems instill in the reader the kind of "perfect attentiveness" that the poet Alan Shapiro reminds us is required for reading and loving.
Here, in these wonderful poems, we see that attentiveness devoted to the frail
and meteoric world through a gaze that is both outward and inward."
--James Hoch
Sample Poem:
The Mermaid Takes Issue with the Fable
I came in the tavern totally naked, that's true.
And those drunk men inside: began to spit.
I was from the sea and I knew a thing, or two.
Yes, yes, a mermaid, but I had not lost my way.
The insults bounced off my gleaming scales.
Obscenities reflected in my tawny breasts.
Oh, I know tears, but on this we agree: I did not weep tears.
I know clothes, and I did not have clothes.
They blackened me with burnt corks and cigarette stubs
and rolled around laughing on the tavern floor, yes.
I did not speak because they would not have listened.
My eyes were the colour of close hatred.
My arms made of white diamonds.
My lips moved, a whisper, in light of the anemone
darts, white threads centered and caught by each gaping mouth.
Entering the sea I was rinsed
clear like an empty mug of beer.
And without looking I swam,
swam towards fullness, swam towards life.
Praise for Lit Windowpane:
"In the poem "Freshwater Notecards" Suzanne Frischkorn writes: I will fly/ in like a bird: not looking/ sideways, not looking/ down, not looking up. The imagination in these poems is like that; avid and disarming, they take the world head on, seeking beauty. In spare lines, with rich and lucid images, Suzanne Frischkorn sees the world transforming and remaking itself before her gaze. I love the elegant, heartfelt power of these poems."
--Cynthia Huntington
From the Introduction to Spring Tide, winner of the Aldrich Poetry Award:
"Suzanne Frischkorn's poems are brisk and compelling. She writes as to a friend, or a stranger who might become a friend. The poems are extremely visual; the language is select and elegant, in the natural way a letter might reach elegance. The poem called "Still Water" begins "I want to tell you…"--a clear desire not only to express but to communicate. The poems are not home-spun by any means but exact, and exactly right, even at times beatific, so that we see what she sees as she sees it, which is pretty much, isn't it, the poem's intended accomplishment?"
--Mary Oliver
About the Author:
In addition to Lit Windowpane, Suzanne Frischkorn is the author of several chapbooks most recently: American Flamingo (MiPOesias Press, 2008) Spring Tide, (Aldrich Museum, 2005) and Red Paper Flower, (Little Poem Press, 2004). Her poems appear in numerous literary journals and anthologies including Ecotone, Indiana Review, MARGIE, Poet Lore, and Conversation Pieces: Poems that Talk to Other Poems, part of the Everyman's Library Pocket Series. She is the recipient of the Aldrich Poetry Award, and an Artist Fellowship from the Connecticut Commission on Culture & Tourism.
Blog: litwindowpane.blogspot.com/
Website: www.suzannefrischkorn.net
ISBN 13: 978-1-59948-134-0, 64 pages, $14.00
Main Street Rag Publishing, 2008
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Main Street Rag: tinyurl.com/3hma6b
Website: tinyurl.com/4xtzxz
Also available through B&N Distribution and Baker & Taylor.
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