Desires Mothers to Please Others in Letters
Published on 26. June 2023
232 pages
978-1-64362-221-7 (ISBN)
Description
Co-published with SplitLevel Texts
Endlessly inclusive, The Desires of Mothers to Please Others in Letters, first published in 1994 and long out of print, evokes the complexity of real persons as it simultaneously reinvents multiple genres: epistle, prose poem, and memoir. Written between 1979 and 1980 while pregnant with her third child, Mayer extends her imaginative letters into meditations for us all on life as it is lived in real time, with its responsibilities and manifold desires. Fierce, lyrical, intimate, and wise, both new and familiar readers, both mothers and non-mothers, will find this book beckoning again and again to offer delicious writing, timely information, consolation, and advice.
Endlessly inclusive, The Desires of Mothers to Please Others in Letters, first published in 1994 and long out of print, evokes the complexity of real persons as it simultaneously reinvents multiple genres: epistle, prose poem, and memoir. Written between 1979 and 1980 while pregnant with her third child, Mayer extends her imaginative letters into meditations for us all on life as it is lived in real time, with its responsibilities and manifold desires. Fierce, lyrical, intimate, and wise, both new and familiar readers, both mothers and non-mothers, will find this book beckoning again and again to offer delicious writing, timely information, consolation, and advice.
More details
Person
BERNADETTE MAYER was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1945. A prolific poet, her first book was published when she was twenty-three years old. Now, many texts later, she continues to write progressive poetry from her home in East Nassau, New York.
Content
- Intro
- Title Page
- Copyright
- Table of Contents
- Introduction
- Plural Dream of Social Life
- Public Lice
- A Bean of Mine
- Horror Story (A Reminder)
- Cista Mistica
- Kempf's Delicatessen on Forest & Putnam
- Designing Disruptive Concealment
- The Fly Has Married the Bumble Bee
- Gardening in Containers
- To the Tune of "Red Embroidered Shoes"
- Under My Green Jacket
- Dear Alive
- The Well of Loneliness
- Two Known Lilies
- Eine Kleine Nacht Musik
- The Prostitutes at the Eldorado Club
- Worse Than the Noon Whistle
- The Slicing Machine I Seen Through the Door of the Eldorado Club in the Dale
- Dear Only
- Pursued as She Stumbled about You It Could Signify Nothing
- Dear Ed
- A Proem Added
- The Day Thurman Munson Died
- Dear Peggy
- Dear Rosemary
- Dear Grace
- Lady Mary Wortley-Montagu's Letter to Her Sister
- Niagaraphobia
- Anacolutha
- Jobless Petty Criminal in 20s
- Don't Film
- Grace Drives a Twenty-Two-Foot Truck
- Pregnancy Mask
- The Notch at the Flume of the Gorge
- The Great Stone Face, The First Frost
- The Red Paint People
- The Vanity of Mount Hunger
- The Men's Men at Women's Words
- Gargling with Marbles
- Pear Pie
- Lighthouse
- Lewis Stapling Books and Watching the Series (Pittsburgh-Baltimore)
- Dear Alive
- Days, Stamps, Stamp Packs, Ties, Socks, Note Pads, etc.
- A Falling Together: To Make Strong Again as in, etc.
- Equinoctial Tears
- Brilliant Bravado October 20 Night
- To Live Above (Survive)
- Different Prescriptive Tedemones
- "Warnings Out of Town"
- Look Out for a Second
- Eating a Wasp
- November Jack
- To View Bacon Lift Flap
- Assworks
- The Black Velvet Midgets
- Visions or Desolation
- ,.
- :?.(-")!
- Hand-Shaped Poems Like Snow-Making Machines
- Dear David
- I'll Drown My Book
- Portrait of a Man Holding a Glove
- Molson Golden, Golden Lights
- The White Squirrel Again
- What Went Wrong
- List the Kinds of Poetry
- Accidental On
- Female Poets of America
- January 2, Full Moon, No Snow, Thin Ice
- The Physiology of Taste
- The Marbles of Arp
- Two Days After Joanna Had Two Stitches
- An Inch of Free Snow January 22
- Almost at the Second Predicted Time for the Third Baby
- Place All the Time
- A Few Days Later It's with Pleasure I Write
- About the Author
- Acknowledgements
- SplitLevel Titles
- Nightboat Books
