Songbird

Carol Ann Davis (Autor)

Buch | Softcover

94 Seiten

2026
Wesleyan University Press (Verlag)
9780819502216 (ISBN)

Infos

Resonant poems give form to the paradoxes of embodiment and interiority

Utilizing the short lyric poem in long sequence, Songbird addresses matters both urgent and ancient: what it is to grow from a child into an adult, how to remain inside one's body, what it means to open the mouth and sing. Guided by the images, senses, and sounds provided to her by the natural world, the poet invents a stuttering natal language to approach the unsayable aspects of interior life. In doing so, the poems collectively trouble the binaries that beset modern existence: the simultaneous push-pull of sexual desire; the interior and exterior landscapes that shape our perceptual fields; the reckoning of violence with beauty; the human need for both permanency and flight. Songbird is a daring and necessary book.

[sample poem]

let me take something small

between my teeth

piece of straw meant

to signify your body

which was given freely to me

or threads of me

that are wheat strands

always these small barters

for a price would I give you

the edge that is

your absence for my presence

and you between my teeth

for the price of grass

the price of all grasses

so say I

to you

in prayer

I would

swallow whole

what gave you in part

Inhalt

up from spine these grasses
//
let me take something small
what gave you in part
by my own burning do you
let shine your infinities
me somewhere
temporary
//
you in your molt
me naked but for
cloth I wove and unwove
by all emptiness
entirely from absences
and imagined the sun
into the unending
of all that would swallow me
and came away
also by thin string
and look how you flower
by way of looking-prayer
by my touch
does my name go wanting
there where I still
//
read me please
o        lemon or poppy
that you just left 
something as temporary
those were my wind-fingers
whence came the blood
if all the world is seed
to open our mouths
set spinning the spell
boil me
if the sky begs
us met and meeting
in back of eye our prayers
you the air
me sky color
o me in your field
//
back to where sugar
and these my eyes
does me imaginary
me untouched and unharmed
true that you saw of me
and you the shape
these our particulars
that I could shuttle
by this cobalt body
because I was both ax
and slipped the body
///
for luke in embryo (france 2006)
redux (borrowed thing)
came my own sunlight
Blue Bottle
convince me songbird
/
open your throat and sing
acknowledgments

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 13.1.2026
• Sprache: englisch
• Maße: 152 x 229 mm
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Lyrik / Dramatik ► Lyrik / Gedichte
• ISBN-13: 9780819502216 / 9780819502216
• Zustand: Neuware