Saturday, August 9, 2014

Reports Four and Five for The Summer Reading Club

Over the past two days I have found time to read books of poems.  I reported on two books of poems for the library summer reading club, King Baby, by Lia Purpura, and Appalachia, by Charles Wright.

Along the library shelves I found King Baby, poems by Lia Purpura.  Her narrator finds an object and so begins her meditations to the object.  The front cover illustration resembles the object as the narrator continues:  “It comes to me, amid all the abundance:/I almost passed you over/I almost said, No, leave it there whatever/It is – brown bag of air, round, frozen/Melon left from summer.”  I reflect people make idols of things they treasure, but King Baby, an object originally crafted as a small instrument, speaks of the opposite idea.  
One poem in Appalachia, by poet laureate Charles Wright, What Do You Write About, Where Do Your Ideas Come From? Begins, “Landscape, of course…” and as it reaches the center, “The missing word and there you have it,/ heart and heart beat,/Never again and never again,…” Each poem is about a page long and they are about landscape, often in a backyard.
An announcement started to race along the top of the computer page as I finished entering the short reports.  I have reported on five books and have won a prize.  Last year I won a green tote bag with Groundbreaking Reads printed on it.
The cover illustration of King Baby, which I find it difficult to include, reminds me of Ernst Barlach's Man Singing, which I saw in Cleveland years back.

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