An Alchemy in the Bones

by Reichard, William

• ISBN13: 9780898231946
• ISBN10: 0898231949
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1999-05-01
• Publisher: New Rivers Pr

Summary

'It's about what can be bent,' William Reichard writes in a poem called 'Bonsai.' These poems, too, are about the ways we're bent by experience: by loss and by desire, by love and difficulty. William Reichard's poems are beautifully open to the 'bent' in all its senses: the not-straight, the damaged, the curves the world throws us. These delicately etched lyrics are attentive to what Reichard calls 'the intricacy of emotion;' it doesn't surprise, then, that this poet has a particular gift for the love poem, for the text of tenderness, the body's 'dazzling code.'"-Mark Doty, author of Heaven's Coast: A Memoir

Table of Contents

One
An Alphabet	3	(1)
Three Scenes from the Life of Victor, Wild Child of Aveyron	4	(2)
Song for Frank O'Hara	6	(2)
Bonsai	8	(1)
The Monster's Dream	9	(1)
Arrangement, with Moon	10	(2)
The Cloud Game	12	(1)
Nijinsky in Love	13	(1)
Slow Meditation	14	(3)
Without Translation	17	(1)
Chromatism: Brown	18	(2)
For a Nun Seeking Refuge in the Form of a Bird	20	(3)
Pomegranate	23	(2)
Rodeo Beach, California	25	(1)
A Measure	26	(2)
Natalie Says	28	(1)
For Liam, When He Grows Up	29	(1)
Autumn Variations	30	(5)
Two
An Alchemy in the Bones	35	(1)
Sleep	36	(1)
Savoring Mangoes	37	(1)
A Torn Curtain	38	(1)
Mnemonic	39	(1)
Notes for a Sacred Music	40	(2)
Cost of Living	42	(1)
This Is a Test. This Is Only a Test	43	(1)
Constellations	44	(1)
Quiet	45	(1)
It Takes Me	46	(2)
Now That We Are Never Finished Mourning	48	(2)
A Widow's Song	50	(3)
Three
There Be Monsters Here	53	(2)
The Window, Autumn	55	(1)
Lobelia	56	(2)
Jerry Lee Lewis Kills His Child Bride	58	(2)
Northern Light	60	(2)
September Wedding	62	(1)
Fort Collins, Colorado	63	(1)
A House Over There	64	(2)
He Will Not Eat Rice	66	(2)
Taking Pictures of the Moon	68	(1)
Diane	69	(1)
My Mother Visits the Site of the Fire	70	(1)
Notes for a History of Someone Else's Grandmother	71	(2)
My Father Speaks	73	(1)
Three Funeral Songs for Linda	74	(3)
In the Lobby of the Hotel Saint Francis, San Francisco	77	(1)
Time Lapse	78	(2)
Unearthed	80