Shells

by Craig Arnold; Foreword by W.S. Merwin

• ISBN13: 9780300079098
• ISBN10: 0300079095
• Format: Trade Book
• Copyright: 1999-03-11
• Publisher: Yale University Press

Summary

This year's winner of the Yale Series of Younger Poets competition is Craig Arnold's Shells, which was acclaimed as "a gifted collection of daring writing" by the contest judge, the distinguished poet W. S. Merwin. Arnold plays on the idea of the shell as both the dazzling surface of the self and a hard case that protects the self against the assaults of the world. His poems narrate amatory and culinary misadventures. "Friendships based on food", Arnold writes, "are rarely stable" -- this book is full of wildly unstable and bewitching friendships and other significant relations.

Table of Contents

Foreword	ix
W. S. Merwin
Acknowledgments	xv
Hermit crab	1	(1)
The Power Grip	2	(4)
For a cook	6	(1)
Scrubbing mussels	7	(2)
Artichoke	9	(2)
Saffron	11	(3)
The extravagance of zoos	14	(3)
Amateur	17	(3)
Boots	20	(2)
Ubi sunt...?	22	(1)
Locker room etiquette	23	(3)
Great dark man	26	(1)
Little shrimp	27	(3)
Leader of men	30	(2)
Grace	32	(4)
Why I skip my high school reunions	36	(1)
Hot	37	(6)
Living with it	43	(1)
Roommates	44	(3)
Shore	47	(4)
Transparent	51	(12)
Merman	63	(4)
Watching for mermaids	67	(4)
Scheherazade	71	(5)
Snail Museum	76