Triptychs
Published on 12. January 2023
Book
Hardback
96 pages
978-1-950268-69-6 (ISBN)
Description
Sandra Simonds's Triptychs is a brilliant intersection of poetic form and the passage of time.
Crafted initially in strips handwritten on rolls of receipt paper obtained at a dollar store, then assembled into three textual columns that sit side-by-side on the page, these triptychs are joined or disjoined in several ways-through diction, through the special relation of words (evoking intimacy, touch or, in contrast, alienation), and through thematic similarities or dissimilarities. Each poem is wildly surprising, ranging from conversations between Baudelaire and Jayne Eyre to the enjoyment of macaroons. As a result, the poems energize the confines of this writing space as they invite readers to recall painterly constructions and news headlines, wherein each pillar is in conversation with another, sequentially and simultaneously. With the same lyric attention found in all of Simonds's poetry, the poems here mark an innovative shift in poetics that is both polyvocal and singular.
Crafted initially in strips handwritten on rolls of receipt paper obtained at a dollar store, then assembled into three textual columns that sit side-by-side on the page, these triptychs are joined or disjoined in several ways-through diction, through the special relation of words (evoking intimacy, touch or, in contrast, alienation), and through thematic similarities or dissimilarities. Each poem is wildly surprising, ranging from conversations between Baudelaire and Jayne Eyre to the enjoyment of macaroons. As a result, the poems energize the confines of this writing space as they invite readers to recall painterly constructions and news headlines, wherein each pillar is in conversation with another, sequentially and simultaneously. With the same lyric attention found in all of Simonds's poetry, the poems here mark an innovative shift in poetics that is both polyvocal and singular.
Reviews / Votes
Fevered and philosophical, Simonds's fierce lyric rages against capitalism and patriarchy for stifling compassion and collective imagination" -New Yorker"Simonds paints a careful portrait of the struggle to embrace difficult realities in an age in which it would be irresponsible to ignore them, even if doing so offers no easy path forward. "-starred review for ATOPIA, Publishers Weekly
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Seattle
United States
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Illustrations
Illustrations
Dimensions
Height: 259 mm
Width: 180 mm
Thickness: 15 mm
Weight
399 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-950268-69-6 (9781950268696)
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
Sandra Simonds is the author of Atopia (Wesleyan University Press, 2019), Orlando, (Wave Books, 2018), Further Problems with Pleasure, winner of the 2015 Akron Poetry Prize (University of Akron, 2017), Steal It Back (Saturnalia Books, 2015), The Sonnets (Bloof Books, 2014), Mother Was a Tragic Girl (Cleveland State University Poetry Center, 2012), and Warsaw Bikini (Bloof Books, 2009). Her poems have been included in the Best American Poetry 2015 and 2014 and have appeared in the New York Times, Poetry, the American Poetry Review, the Chicago Review, Granta, Boston Review, Ploughshares, Fence, Court Green, and Lana Turner. She lives in Tallahassee, Florida and is an Associate professor of English and Humanities at Thomas University in Thomasville, Georgia.
Content
TABLE OF CONTENTS
I Gave Birth in Another Era
Bildungsroman
Reading The Bell Jar in Everglades National Park
Gong! Gong! Gong!
Now that You're Dead, I'm Observing Great Bodies of Water
With Joy with No Joy
Now Wait for Last Year
Let's Make the Water Turn Black
And the Days Shall be Filled with Music
The Poet Enters Through the Subjunctive Mood
Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk
I Sang a Song with the Dead
March Pandemie
Planting a Loquat Tree During the Worst Week of the Pandemic
As in the Pyroclastic Volcano
The Future is Not What it Was
Your Eyes Resemble Mine
Poem with Three Lines by Gustaf Sobin
Dollar Tree Poiesis
Tick Tock Cryptic
Hold! Said the Hand Said the Money
To Take a Lover in the Intricately Woven Kaleidoscope
Dear Anselm,
Pastoral in the Minor Key
The Only Cloud in the Sky to Impress me with a Demoniacal Grandeur
The Password is Hex Key 526
The Flammagenitus Strophes
Skate World Waveform
It was Raining in the French Concession
Double Happiness or "Modernity Means Contingency"
Trashland Political Economy
An Equanimous Defense of the Exclamation Point
New Year's Requiem
Makeup Pollen Ointment
I Bought You a Bonsai Cypress Tree on the Way to the Shore
On Avondale and Riverside
I Gave Birth in Another Era
Bildungsroman
Reading The Bell Jar in Everglades National Park
Gong! Gong! Gong!
Now that You're Dead, I'm Observing Great Bodies of Water
With Joy with No Joy
Now Wait for Last Year
Let's Make the Water Turn Black
And the Days Shall be Filled with Music
The Poet Enters Through the Subjunctive Mood
Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk
I Sang a Song with the Dead
March Pandemie
Planting a Loquat Tree During the Worst Week of the Pandemic
As in the Pyroclastic Volcano
The Future is Not What it Was
Your Eyes Resemble Mine
Poem with Three Lines by Gustaf Sobin
Dollar Tree Poiesis
Tick Tock Cryptic
Hold! Said the Hand Said the Money
To Take a Lover in the Intricately Woven Kaleidoscope
Dear Anselm,
Pastoral in the Minor Key
The Only Cloud in the Sky to Impress me with a Demoniacal Grandeur
The Password is Hex Key 526
The Flammagenitus Strophes
Skate World Waveform
It was Raining in the French Concession
Double Happiness or "Modernity Means Contingency"
Trashland Political Economy
An Equanimous Defense of the Exclamation Point
New Year's Requiem
Makeup Pollen Ointment
I Bought You a Bonsai Cypress Tree on the Way to the Shore
On Avondale and Riverside