Orphan FIre

by Valles, Alissa

• ISBN13: 9781884800870
• ISBN10: 1884800874
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2008-10-31
• Publisher: Four Way Books

Summary

This remarkable sequence of lyric poems combines to a beautiful, luminous exploration of emotional intensity, of how the body is inhabited by fear, or love, or "a cynical knowledge that helps us endure." The images in these poems will be etched in your mind long after you have put this book down.

Author Biography

ALISSA VALLES was born in Amsterdam in 1972 to American and Dutch parents. She grew up in the USA and the Netherlands, studied Slavic languages, literature and history at London's School of Slavonic and East European Studies. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, The Iowa Review and elsewhere. She lives in Berkeley.

Table of Contents

Orphan Fire	p. 3
Photograph	p. 17
If	p. 18
In the North (Westerbork)	p. 19
National Resources (Amsterdam)	p. 20
London E5	p. 22
Ev'n in their Ashes (Srebrenica-London 1995)	p. 24
Knife	p. 26
Wagner's Dreams	p. 27
Two Gods	p. 29
In the South	p. 30
Maison des Pestiferez (Flemish print, 17th Century)	p. 33
Paris 2001	p. 34
The Afterlife of Victory (Pierson Museum of Antiquities, Amsterdam)	p. 35
Relics of Cluny	p. 36
San Juan del Duero	p. 38
Days of 2004	p. 39
Vasilevsky Island	p. 42
Akhmatova, 1921	p. 43
Postcards from Krakow	p. 44
Translation	p. 46
Terminal Etude	p. 47
Mathematician	p. 51
Immigrant School, San Francisco	p. 53
Mondriaan	p. 54
From the Chinese Book of Songs	p. 55
Curriculum Vitae	p. 58
Nativity	p. 60
Letter Found in a Russian Novel	p. 61
Interior Model	p. 63
After the Arabic	p. 64
Pascal, inventor of the syringe	p. 66
Post-Homage	p. 67
Notes	p. 77
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