|
Showing 1 - 6 of
6 matches in All Departments
Dramatically urgent from the get-go, many of Jacqueline Osherow's
poems approach inconsistencies and mysteries in Biblical texts.
From traditional poetic forms (sonnet, terza rima, villanelle,
sestina, acrostic, loose ottava rima) to an austere free verse,
Osherow mixes humor and seriousness while maintaining a
conversational tone. These poems deal with Jewish tradition and the
land of Israel in revelatory new ways. Jacqueline Osherow is the
author of four previous poetry collections. Her work has appeared
in The Norton Anthology of Jewish American Literature, The Penguin
Book of the Sonnet, Best American Poetry (1995 and 1998) and The
Extraordinary Tide: New Poetry by American Women, Awards include
fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the NEA. She is a
distinguished professor of English at the University of Utah.
The reach of Divine Ratios is global, ranging from Tang Dynasty
China and the Florentine Renaissance to contemporary Baltimore,
post-World War II Berlin, and the landscapes of the Mountain West.
The speed and mobility evoked in this new collection by Jacqueline
Osherow are not only physical-a traveler's movement in a crowded,
thrilling world-but imaginative, and its poetic idiom is no less
varied, as a breezy conversational tone serves as a counterpoint to
traditional form. With striking juxtapositions of natural and
cultural wonders, this enrapturing volume asks, what is the right
proportion-or "ratio"-for living in a world of such splendors,
horrors, and possibilities?
In My Lookalike at the Krishna Temple, Jacqueline Osherow considers
expressions of spirituality from cultures all over the world and
investigates previously unexplored aspects of her relationship to
Judaism and Jewish history. While some poems reflect on
practitioners of self-imposed isolation, from the monks in Fra
Angelico's frescoed cells to Emily Dickinson to the Kotzker Rebbe,
others explore topics as varied as architecture, geometry, faith,
war, and genocide. Osherow finds beauty in Joseph's dreams, the
euphony of crickets, and the gamut of symmetries on display in the
Alhambra. The scent of lindens serves as a meditative bridge
between Darmstadt, Germany, alien and unnerving, and a familiar
front porch in Salt Lake City, where the poet freely engages with
the natural world: ""Don't worry, moon; we all lose our bearings. /
You don't have to rise. Stay here instead. / I'll spot you; we
could both use an allyaEURO.../aEURO...and rumor has it
disorientationaEURO.../aEURO...is the least resistant pathway to
what's holy."" Osherow takes readers on a journey as tourists and
global citizens, trying to find meaning in an often painful and
chaotic world.
In this collection, Jacqueline Osherow gives us perfectly formed,
musical poems that glide between the worlds of art, architecture,
literature, and religion. Traveling through Europe, Tel Aviv, and
New York, Osherow observes with a keen eye the details of objects
-- beautiful buildings and ancient artifacts -- and of the
conversations and interactions she has with others. Finely
constructed and always engaging, her poems uncover the startling
truths of memory and coax our own forgotten moments from the
recesses of the mind.
In "Poem for Jenne," which opens Jacqueline Osherow's ambitious and
challenging new collection, a neighbor has planted larkspur and
delphinium in the poet's yard and is tending them hoping to bring
color and light into a household stricken by personal tragedy. As
the bright blue, star-shaped flowers bloom for a second time, the
poet writes, "earth's reaching for her heavens, I for words / or
any chink of rapture I can claim." The pervasive theme, in this
poem and throughout Whitethorn, is that human suffering may be
irremediable, yet in nature and language one may find a key to
unlock the mysteries of sorrow. Osherow searches for that cipher by
exploring a range of suffering, from the personal to the historical
and cultural. In the poem "Orders of Infinity" she visits Treblinka
and, in her inability to count the stones or quantify the real loss
of the Holocaust, ponders the impossibility of imagining the unborn
generations of the victims' descendants, an infinity of lives not
lived, "undreamed daydreams, mute conversations, ungratified
indulgences, failed hints . . ." In Whitethorn, a book of enormous
scope and emotional intelligence, Osherow unflinchingly examines
the pain of her own personal history and courageously probes the
greater mystery of evil and suffering in the world.
|
You may like...
Loot
Nadine Gordimer
Paperback
(2)
R383
R318
Discovery Miles 3 180
Southpaw
Jake Gyllenhaal, Forest Whitaker, …
DVD
R96
R23
Discovery Miles 230
|