Our Purpose in Speaking
Published on 1. August 2018
Book
Paperback/Softback
96 pages
978-1-61186-290-4 (ISBN)
Description
In this debut poetry collection by an award-winning fiction writer, the longing for God and the poignancy of family life echo each other's music. The traditional forms of sonnet, sestina, and villanelle punctuate more modern verse forms, this combination being only one of the strands binding past and present. Many of these poems may be read as confessions-of joy, of hurtfulness given or received, of awe at the inescapable reality of love. This volume comprises spiritual writing that remains firmly of this world, part apostasy, part song, reaching out for meaning from both the shifting landscape of Maryland's Chesapeake Bay and the interior places of the heart.
Reviews / Votes
"Orem's poems are tender, brave, and searching. Ranging widely in form and tone, the poems explore the landscape of relationship and loss in language that is emotionally compelling and spiritually rigorous. There is no answer in these poems, but there is hope-the hope of looking closely, without flinching; the hope in the questioning itself."-WENDY MNOOKIN, author of Dinner with Emerson
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
East Lansing
United States
Publishing group
Michigan State University Press
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Unsewn / adhesive bound
Dimensions
Height: 224 mm
Width: 150 mm
Thickness: 10 mm
Weight
748 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-61186-290-4 (9781611862904)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
WILLIAM OREM is a Senior Writer-in-Residence at Emerson College.
Content
Contents
Critical Care
Sonnet: My Mother Refuses Mastectomy
Snowfall Expected After Midnight
Memory Is in Our Fingers
The Phantom Hitcher
Sonnet: Golden Retriever Abandoned in Field
The Vinedresser
Storm Season, Rehoboth Beach
Wood, Shell, Star
Love Poem (Tonight We Swell)
Night Fishing on Chesapeake Bay
Sonnet (One Comes, Then, Faintly Conscious)
Snakes in Ceiling
Adonai, Adonai
Witch Canticle
Jack o'Lanterns in a Row
Sonnet: The Word Mercurial
On Being Asked, While Mailing Poems, Whether These Packages Contain Anything Potentially Hazardous
The Love Gods Ask
Sonnet: Capitol Hill, 1981
Critical Care
Our Purpose In Speaking
Sonnet: Francis to the Birds
Fifty-four Acres
The Swimmer
At Summer's End We Came to the Darkening Sea
I Want the Light No One Sees
Metaphor of the Cave
Christmas Eve, North of Dolan, Indiana
Sonnet: The Dream Undoes Its Exposition
Our Purpose in Speaking
Whale, Cape Henlopen
"Great nature has another thing to do to you and me"
Sonnet: Lust
Sonnet: After the Crematorium
Catechumen
In Memoriam Erwin Schroedinger, August 1887 - January 1961
Handmaiden
Epitaph for Unwritten Poetry
Jalousie Maladive
Tidewater
New Year's Day (Here is your morning sky)
The Woman Upstairs Making Love
Sonnet: Crucifix
Acknowledgments
Critical Care
Sonnet: My Mother Refuses Mastectomy
Snowfall Expected After Midnight
Memory Is in Our Fingers
The Phantom Hitcher
Sonnet: Golden Retriever Abandoned in Field
The Vinedresser
Storm Season, Rehoboth Beach
Wood, Shell, Star
Love Poem (Tonight We Swell)
Night Fishing on Chesapeake Bay
Sonnet (One Comes, Then, Faintly Conscious)
Snakes in Ceiling
Adonai, Adonai
Witch Canticle
Jack o'Lanterns in a Row
Sonnet: The Word Mercurial
On Being Asked, While Mailing Poems, Whether These Packages Contain Anything Potentially Hazardous
The Love Gods Ask
Sonnet: Capitol Hill, 1981
Critical Care
Our Purpose In Speaking
Sonnet: Francis to the Birds
Fifty-four Acres
The Swimmer
At Summer's End We Came to the Darkening Sea
I Want the Light No One Sees
Metaphor of the Cave
Christmas Eve, North of Dolan, Indiana
Sonnet: The Dream Undoes Its Exposition
Our Purpose in Speaking
Whale, Cape Henlopen
"Great nature has another thing to do to you and me"
Sonnet: Lust
Sonnet: After the Crematorium
Catechumen
In Memoriam Erwin Schroedinger, August 1887 - January 1961
Handmaiden
Epitaph for Unwritten Poetry
Jalousie Maladive
Tidewater
New Year's Day (Here is your morning sky)
The Woman Upstairs Making Love
Sonnet: Crucifix
Acknowledgments