Open House Writers Rediefine Home - Graywolf Forum Five

by Doty, Mark

• ISBN13: 9781555973827
• ISBN10: 1555973825
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-06-01
• Publisher: Graywolf Press

Summary

Twenty Writers Define Home In All of Its Complexity and Variety "Where do I live? I don't have a ready answer, not really, but I've realized there's something I like about not having an answer. And indeed something of that spirita curious, open engagement with the now, in its slippery and uncertain characteranimates this book." Mark Doty, from his Introduction In a shifting world, concepts of place and home take many forms. Mark Doty gathers an impressive group of writers to describe their contemporary sense of home. Victoria Redel lives her teenage years from inside a fifteen-pound body castloving and hating the loss of her body; Barbara Hurd finds that within a cave, the absence of all light allows for clarity of vision; and Andrea Barrett wipes filth from a sill in her Brooklyn apartment only to realize that the dirt is actually "ash of buildings, ash of planes. Ash of people." Surroundingswalls, trees, or states of mindare defined by our reactions to them. These essays are about how the mind can create a homefor a moment, or for a lifetime. Contributors include Bernard Cooper, Carol Muske-Dukes, Deborah Lott, Elizabeth McCracken, Mary Morris, and Terry Tempest Williams.

Author Biography

Mark Doty has received many awards and honors for his poetry, including the National Book Critics Circle Award and a Guggenheim Fellowship. He divides his time between New York City and Provincetown, Massachusetts.

Table of Contents

Introduction	vii
Mark Doty
Houseful	3	(12)
Honor Moore
A Hole in the Wall	15	(11)
Andrea Barrett
In the Hollow That Remains	26	(13)
Barbara Hurd
The Color of Drought	39	(4)
Terry Tempest Williams
Famous Builder	43	(12)
Paul Lisicky
Just What Is It That Makes Today's Homes So Different, So Appealing?	55	(18)
Bernard Cooper
My Des Moines	73	(16)
Elizabeth McCracken
A Poet in Hollywood	89	(10)
Carol Muske-Dukes
Leaving Rwanda	99	(18)
Derick Burleson
Elephant Girl	117	(10)
Deborah A. Lott
Freud's Couch	127	(10)
Karen Brennan
The Solitary Star: Finding a Cuban Home in Poetry	137	(8)
Rafael Campo
``The grass is very dark to be from the white heads of old mothers''	145	(16)
Michael Joseph Gross
Seeing Is Believing	161	(9)
Carmen Boullosa
Alfred MacAdam
This Place / Displace	170	(21)
Reginald Shepherd
The Last Safe Place	191	(17)
Kathleen Cambor
Notes on the Underground	208	(8)
Mary Morris
The Panorama Mesdag	216	(9)
Mark Doty
The Body Metallic	225
Victoria Redel