Bright Existence

by Hillman, Brenda

• ISBN13: 9780819512079
• ISBN10: 0819512079
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1993-10-01
• Publisher: Wesleyan Univ Pr

Summary

The poems in Brenda Hillman's new collection, a companion volume to her recent Death Tratates, offer a dynamic vision of a universe founded on the tensions between light and dark , existence and non-existence, male and female, spirit and matter. Informed in part by Gnostic concepts of the separate soul in search of its divine origins ("spirit held by matter"). This dualistic vision is cast in contemporary terms and seeks resolution of these tensions through acceptance.

Author Biography

BRENDA HILLMAN is the author of Coffee, 3 A.M. (1982), and three other books of poetry published by Wesleyan University Press, White Dress (1985), Fortress (1989), and Death Tractates (1992). Her work has won the Delmore Schwartz Memorial Award for Poetry and the Poetry Society of America's Norma Farber First Book Prize. She teaches at ST. Mary's College in Moraga, CA. Her other books, all published by Wesleyan, include Cascadia (2001), Loose Sugar (1997), Death Tractates (1992), and Fortress (1989).

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
A Note about the Book
Little Furnace	p. 1
Twelve Dawns
Old Ice	p. 5
Dark Existence	p. 6
Black Series	p. 7
The Servant	p. 8
December Shadow	p. 9
January Dawn	p. 10
March Dawn	p. 11
Blossoms Appearing	p. 12
Every Life	p. 13
A Vigil	p. 14
First Thought	p. 15
Dark Matter
Mighty Forms	p. 19
Adult Joy	p. 20
Food	p. 22
Holding On	p. 25
Recycling Center	p. 26
The Rat	p. 28
Sorrow of Matter	p. 30
The Spell	p. 32
Several Errands	p. 33
(interruption)	p. 35
Dark Matter	p. 36
The Hair	p. 38
Toll Collector	p. 39
Gnostic Heaven
Gnostic Heaven	p. 43
Magdalene	p. 45
Meridian Plinth	p. 49
Autumn Moon	p. 51
(interruption)	p. 56
Steinberg Case	p. 57
Small Spaces	p. 62
untitled fragment	p. 63
untitled fragment	p. 64
untitled fragment	p. 65
untitled fragment	p. 66
untitled fragment	p. 67
A Foghorn	p. 68
Bright Existence
Trapped Light	p. 73
Vast Fluttering	p. 74
Almost Shadow	p. 77
Spare World	p. 78
(interruption)	p. 81
Branch, Scraping	p. 82
Archaic Wanderings	p. 84
Tom Shadow	p. 85
Marshy Area	p. 88
Useful Shadow	p. 89
Luminous Textures	p. 91
Empty Shadow	p. 94
Bright Existence	p. 96
The Snakeskin	p. 99
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