Dear Ghosts, Poems

by Gallagher, Tess

• ISBN13: 9781555974435
• ISBN10: 1555974430
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2006-05-02
• Publisher: Graywolf Press

Summary

The long-awaited and resplendent new poetry collection by Tess Gallagher, whose poems "are a gift of a poet's heart and soul to her readers" (Robert Coles) Don't sharpen them. Expectation, more dangerous than any blade. --"Knives in the Borrowed House" Fourteen years afterMoon Crossing Bridge--Tess Gallagher's powerful elegies for her husband, Raymond Carver--Dear Ghosts, is the return of Gallagher's unequivocal voice. In these new poems, the ghosts of the past are conjured as part of the present day: the deceased beloved, the father long dead, the ailing mother, the victims of holocaust and war. With these spirits beside her, Gallagher confronts her own illness and mortality, and celebrates love and friendship in these spare lyrics and muscular narratives, each punctuated by her resilience and grace. Here is the new work by one of America's most accomplished poets.

Author Biography

Tess Gallagher is a poet, fiction writer, essayist, screenplay writer, and translator. Her previous poetry collections include Moon Crossing Bridge and Amplitude: New and Selected Poems. She lives in Port Angeles, Washington.

Table of Contents

My unopened life	p. 3
Not a sparrow	p. 5
Sah Sin	p. 7
A stroke of sky	p. 10
Sayonara, baby	p. 13
The dogs of bucharest	p. 16
Choices	p. 23
Irish weather	p. 24
Brushing fate	p. 25
After looking at property in a busy Irish town	p. 27
Sugarcane	p. 28
Knives in the borrowed house	p. 31
I have never wanted to march	p. 32
Weather report	p. 36
Eternal	p. 37
The women of Auschwitz	p. 41
Lady Betty	p. 45
Offering	p. 48
Little match box	p. 49
Fire starter	p. 50
Lie down with the lamb	p. 54
What the new day is for	p. 56
Heart-mirror	p. 61
Orange sutra	p. 62
You are like that	p. 64
Apparition	p. 66
Unspoken	p. 69
The rooster crows	p. 70
Black beauty	p. 74
Dream doughnuts	p. 78
Urgent story	p. 80
Moon's rainbow body	p. 85
Dear ghosts	p. 86
Emanation of the red child	p. 89
Cairo Moon	p. 91
Across the border	p. 97
She wipes out time	p. 99
The violence of unseen forms	p. 102
Behave	p. 104
Oil spot	p. 106
Cultivation	p. 108
In lilac-light	p. 109
Water walking	p. 115
I asked that a prayer	p. 117
Surgeon	p. 119
The red devil	p. 121
Sky house	p. 122
Buddha alcove	p. 123
Bull's-eye	p. 126
Remains	p. 127
With Setouchi-san in Kyoto	p. 128
Walking meditation with Thich Nhat Hanh	p. 130
Sixteenth anniversary	p. 132
Comeback	p. 136
Death's Ink	p. 138
Table of Contents provided by Blackwell. All Rights Reserved.