Potential Stranger

by Clary, Jack

• ISBN13: 9780226109312
• ISBN10: 0226109313
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-04-01
• Publisher: Univ of Chicago Pr

Summary

On page after enigmatic page, Killarney Clary shows us her mastery of the prose poem in this spiritual biography that journeys across the natural landscape while plumbing the dizzying depths of the psyche. Potential Stranger reveals that in the public world we are all called upon to perform: as children, we are expected to find a place in the uniform; as entertainers, to play an exaggerated version of ourselves; and, as explorers, to rest content when we have reached our destination. Precise, prophetic, and spare, Clary reminds us that of all the potential strangers we may meet in our travels, people who forever "remain behind gestures and posture," the first and last of those is always the self.

Author Biography

Killarney Clary is the author of two books of poems, By Common Salt and Who Whispered Near Me, and a chapbook, By Me, By Any, Can and Can't Be Done. She lives in Los Angeles.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	xi
Toward you where you must be	3	(1)
The log records preparations	4	(1)
Each born slightly misshapen	5	(1)
One, gentled	6	(1)
At junctures	7	(1)
The man has lost his way in the snow	8	(1)
The body says it can put forth	9	(1)
Icy air presses on the tableland	10	(1)
We climbed to a high altitude	11	(1)
Bright planet	12	(1)
A bitter front arrives	13	(1)
Pieces that jammed	14	(1)
Two magpies	15	(1)
All that isn't me	16	(1)
Ochre leaves quivered	17	(1)
I tested my cream kid slippers	18	(1)
To tell you	19	(1)
A truck pulled up	20	(1)
We bent for potsherds	21	(1)
No one promised	22	(1)
If I could gather silence	23	(1)
Barely light, still an arch of shine	24	(1)
His body is a pendulum	25	(1)
The last sure thing	26	(1)
He tied his ankle	27	(1)
Confetti lifts over the fairground	28	(1)
Into the land of youth	29	(1)
I dove to where there was no light	30	(1)
Who prayed for us	31	(1)
Two notes	32	(1)
You come as smoke	33	(1)
In this wind	34	(1)
Wimple and guimpe	35	(1)
Beneath pageantry	36	(1)
Elm leaf shadows	37	(1)
The boy had told a rhyme	38	(1)
This is where I am	39	(1)
My love of the surprise	40	(1)
To have tried	41	(1)
Bees of light	42	(1)
Whitecaps	43	(1)
The lip of a yellow snapdragon	44	(1)
A clear membrane	45	(1)
Flies bump	46	(1)
This must be held	47	(1)
The exchange rat	48	(1)
The magician tugs one luminous corner	49	(1)
Any one of us might have turned away	50	(1)
El Paso	51	(1)
The wind is a knife	52	(1)
Above San Xavier	53	(1)
A bottle thrown	54	(1)
A small stranger	55	(1)
My hands, pressed	56	(1)
It's hot	57	(1)
In ratio	58	(1)
Would I dive	59	(1)
The stream's run dry	60	(1)
I count to myself	61