Reversing the Spell : New and Selected Poems

by Wilner, Eleanor

• ISBN13: 9781556590825
• ISBN10: 1556590822
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1998-01-01
• Publisher: Consortium Book Sales & Dist

Summary

"If there is one person who epitomizes the best of today's women's poetry, it is surely Eleanor Wilner."--"Booklist"

Table of Contents

UP AGAINST IT: NEW POEMS 1993-1996	7	(65)
I. What Goes On	7	(24)
Trummerfrauen	7	(2)
Abstraction	9	(3)
All the Wide Grin of Him	12	(1)
Sunflowers, Repossessed	13	(2)
Killing the Grubs	15	(1)
Middle-Class Vantage	16	(2)
Dinner Party	18	(2)
Judgement	20	(1)
On Ethnic Definitions	21	(1)
What Was Going On	22	(2)
Ode to Innocence	24	(2)
The Pillar	26	(5)
II. The Cohort	31	(20)
Facing into It	31	(2)
A Poem of Exile	33	(3)
Filling in the Blanks	36	(2)
Salute to Donald Davie	38	(1)
Working the Block	39	(1)
Her Body is Private	40	(1)
On the Road to Larry Robin's Bookstore	41	(2)
Women Talking	43	(2)
"...now I can go on and on"	45	(2)
"...Zero at the Bone"	47	(4)
III. Lifelines	51	(21)
You, Failed Pronoun	51	(1)
Job's Wife, a Twentieth-Century Casting Script	52	(2)
Off the Hook	54	(1)
Conditional Riff	55	(1)
Winged Victory	56	(3)
Of a Sun She Can Remember	59	(1)
Blessing	60	(2)
The Messenger	62	(3)
Up Against It	65	(7)
from OTHERWISE (1993)	72	(81)
I.	72	(31)
Night Fishing in the Sound	72	(3)
Being As I Was, How Could I Help...	75	(2)
When Asked to Lie Down on the Altar	77	(3)
"...as soft and as pink as a nursery..."	80	(2)
The Love of What is Not	82	(4)
Amelia	86	(3)
Admonition	89	(1)
Operations: Desert Shield, Desert Storm	90	(4)
Bat Cave	94	(4)
Ume: Plum	98	(5)
II.	103	(24)
The Bird in the Laurel's Song	103	(2)
How to Get in the Best Magazines	105	(3)
The Muse	108	(2)
Leda's Handmaiden	110	(3)
Ambition	113	(4)
The Lament of the Valkyrie	117	(3)
The Secret Garden	120	(2)
Those Who Come After	122	(5)
III.	127	(26)
Generic Vision, 1991	127	(2)
What Was Left Over	129	(3)
Atget's Gardens	132	(2)
Moonsnails	134	(2)
Freed from Another Context	136	(3)
The Mulch	139	(2)
Kazuko's Vision	141	(2)
American Painting, with Rain	143	(4)
Changing the Imperatives	147	(6)
from SARAH'S CHOICE (1989)	153	(62)
I.	153	(30)
Coda, Overture	153	(2)
Reading the Bible Backwards	155	(3)
Miriam's Song	158	(2)
Minor Epic	160	(2)
Desert Parable	162	(3)
Sarah's Choice	165	(4)
Postscript	169	(4)
Two Pairs of Eyes	173	(2)
"Never Apologize for Poetry"	175	(2)
Classical Proportions of the Heart	177	(6)
II.	183	(32)
Beauty and the Beast	183	(2)
The Last Man	185	(2)
The American Sublime: Robert Penn Warren	187	(2)
Tucson Gardens	189	(2)
High Noon at Los Alamos	191	(2)
As Far as it Goes, and Back	193	(2)
Nandin's Tail	195	(2)
The Towers of Silence	197	(4)
It's Not Cold Here	201	(2)
"Midway the journey of this life..."	203	(2)
The Green Connection	205	(2)
Conversation with a Japanese Student	207	(3)
Having Eaten of the Tree of Knowledge	210	(5)
from SHEKHINAH (1984)	215	(64)
I.	215	(32)
Emigration	215	(2)
Without Regret	217	(2)
Eleusis	219	(4)
The World is Not a Meditation	223	(4)
Candied	227	(2)
Concerto	229	(2)
A Short History of Philosophy	231	(3)
The Fourth David	234	(4)
See-Saw	238	(2)
So Quietly the World	240	(2)
Ars Poetica	242	(5)
II.	247	(32)
Meditation on the Wen-Fu	247	(2)
Hunting Manual	249	(2)
Metamorphoses at a College for Women	251	(2)
The Literal = The Abstract: A Demonstration	253	(2)
The Oldest Desire	255	(2)
Elegy for a Writer	257	(3)
My Mother's Portait	260	(4)
Labyrinth	264	(3)
Recovery	267	(2)
The Continuous is Broken, and Resumes	269	(2)
The End of the Line	271	(2)
Ex Libris	273	(6)
from MAYA (1979)	279	(52)
I.	279	(30)
Landing	279	(2)
Epitaph	281	(2)
Unstrung	283	(2)
East of the Sun, West of the Moon	285	(2)
Water Lace and White Eyes	287	(2)
Natural History	289	(1)
maya	290	(2)
Knowing the Enemy	292	(2)
The Round Fish	294	(2)
A Comment on the Relevance of Modern Science to the Everyday Lives of the Larger Animals	296	(2)
Renegade	298	(2)
Iphigenia, Setting the Record Straight	300	(2)
A Private Space	302	(2)
Beyond the Second Landing	304	(5)
II.	309	(22)
Bailing Out -- A Poem for the 1970s	309	(1)
Closing Ceremonies for the Bicentennial	310	(2)
Lament	312	(1)
The Illuminator	313	(2)
Instructions to Painters by Wang Wei, Eighth Century	315	(1)
Mt. Fuji and the Martial Arts	316	(1)
Made by Hand	317	(1)
Thoughts of a Retired Diamond Cutter	318	(1)
Laurels	319	(2)
Love Uncommanded	321	(2)
Winter Garden	323	(2)
Bridge Passage: Variations on Two Scales	325	(6)
Notes	331	(6)
About the Author	337	(2)
Index of Titles	339