North True South Bright

by Beachy-Quick, Dan

• ISBN13: 9781882295388
• ISBN10: 1882295382
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-04-01
• Publisher: Alice James Books

Summary

This smart, lyrical collection explores the dangers of a world so complex that no single consciousness may grasp it-however much the attempt must be made. Following historical and imagined figures as they encounter specific moments or objects (such as Thomas Hariot in the Ameri-can Wilderness of the late 16th century), the poems attempt to record the unraveling of the safe and singular into a multiplicity of unknowns. Impelled by metaphor and lilting repetition, North True South Bright seeks a sense of the world, and ultimately, a sense of the Infinite. Hariot's Round I know, to entice, to convince, I must sing Your ear inside stone, must sing Gold bitten and true, the corn kernel, one seed, I must plant one gold seed in your mouth with my lips. Raleigh says: the Queen known my name. The Crown Of a woodpecker is ruby, but shy. Inhabitants adorn themselves with feathers, and feathers Bright on arrow ends. Bow-before a Queen. Bend closed my book. The page is deaf that turns back to look at what it found. "In North True South Bright, Dan Beachy-Quick proves the compass of his eye to be perfectly exact, precisely true. These poems are finely made contemporaries of sunlight. And, like sunlight, their history is Now."-Donald Revell

Table of Contents

North/South Composition	3	(6)
Unworn	9	(36)
Psalm (Galileo)	10	(2)
Psalm (Philomela)	12	(2)
Fess-Charm	14	(2)
Said-Charm	16	(2)
Hariot's Round	18	(3)
At Removes	21	(6)
Northrrue. Southbright	27	(1)
Stanzas (Disclosed in Time)	28	(3)
Echo & A	31	(3)
Hariot's Round	34	(3)
Work-Charm	37	(2)
Vellum-Charm	39	(2)
Psalm (Traherne)	41	(4)
Daybook	45	(20)
Notes	65