Self/pity

by Hahn, Susan Firestone

• ISBN13: 9780810151659
• ISBN10: 0810151650
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-08-19
• Publisher: Northwestern Univ Pr

Summary

Drawing on history, myth, folk rhymes, human physiology, and the psyche's crevices, Susan Hahn'sSelf/Pityis a relentless journey of the self through time, into the labyrinth of the present with its own stimuli and despairs. She strikes a delicate balance of contrast and collision between the various linked poems in this collection, which all deal with birth, the body, and the soul. As with her previous collections, the poems inSelf/Pitycan be read as a cohesive whole. From the simple prayer "To Jacob Four Months In The Womb" to the complex territory of the poem sequence "The Pornography of Pity," in which Mother Goose, the Marquis de Sade, Godot, Lewis Carroll's Alice, The Cat and the Fiddle, Zeus, and many others are called upon, Hahn creates a tour-de-force exploration of the book's central themes.

Author Biography

Susan Hahn is a poet, playwright, and the editor of TriQuarterly magazine. She is the author of five books of poetry and the recipient of many awards for her poems, including a 2003 Guggenheim Fellowship. The Chicago Tribune named her fourth book, Holiday, and her fifth book, Mother in Summer, among the Best Books of 2002. Her first play will have its world premiere in February 2005.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	xi
ONE
O Baby O	5	(6)
TWO
Pity the Foot	11	(1)
Pity the Appendix	12	(1)
And the Hindgut	13	(1)
Pity the Skin	14	(1)
Pity the Face	15	(1)
Pity the Brain	16	(2)
Pity the Self—Middle-aged	18	(1)
Pity Such Teeth	19	(2)
Pity the Self—Postmortem	21	(2)
Pity the Self—Postmodern	23	(4)
THREE
The Seventh Chakra	27	(8)
FOUR
The Pornography of Pity	35	(16)
FIVE
The Pity of Punctuation	51	(2)
Goose Pity	53	(6)
SIX
Pity Dance for a Small Troupe	59	(1)
Pity Song in Solo Voice without Accompaniment	60	(1)
everyone	61	(2)
Pity Jerusalem	63	(1)
Pity the Judas Tree	64	(2)
For Jacob Four Months in the Womb	66