The Tension Zone

by Gorham, Sarah

• ISBN13: 9781884800061
• ISBN10: 1884800068
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1996-04-01
• Publisher: Four Way Books

Author Biography

SARAH GORHAM is a poet and publisher who currently resides in Louisville, Kentucky; wh she is the founder of Sarabande Books (in 1994), and also the wife of poet Jeffrey Skinner. she won the Carolyn Kizer Award from Poetry Northwest in 1990; grants and fellowships from The Kentucky State Arts Council, The Kentucky Foundation for Women, The Delaware State Arts Council, The Connecticut Commission on the Arts, Yaddo and MacDowell Colony; in 1983 she received the Gertrude Claytor Prize from the Poetry Society of America.

Table of Contents

Foreword	ix
Surveyors	1	(1)
National Enquirer	2	(1)
Ode to the Intellect	3	(1)
Casual Lies	4	(2)
The Tension Zone	6	(1)
Tiptoe	7	(1)
Imperial Gown	8	(1)
Visit from the Footbinder	9	(1)
The Minor Machu's Daughter	10	(1)
My Daughter Defaces the Life of Emily Dickinson	11	(1)
Reaction Wood	12	(1)
Concubine of the Lowest Rank	13	(1)
Three Notes from a Chinese Love Manual	14	(3)
Birth	17	(1)
Man Drinking a Cup of Coffee	18	(2)
Circles, after Emerson	20	(2)
Star Fish	22	(1)
Her Advice to the Emperor, 1855	23	(1)
Ideogram	24	(1)
Motherly and Auspicious	25	(1)
Crossing Guard	26	(2)
Extra Extra	28	(2)
Group Photo in the Baby Factory	30	(2)
The Empress Speaks to Buddha	32	(1)
She Buys a Fan	33	(1)
The Empress Receives the Head of a Taiping Rebel	34	(1)
The Uniform Quiet of the Next Century	35	(1)
Cautionary Tale, 3 AM	36	(1)
Stillborn	37	(1)
Clear Air Turbulence	38	(1)
The Empress and the Railroad	39	(1)
The Empress's Dwarf Apricot	40	(1)
Ideogram II	41	(1)
Hot Water	42	(1)
Villanelle in the Open	43	(1)
The Empress Calls on the Goddess of Mercy	44	(1)
Moon Cakes	45	(1)
Highway Marker, Route 71 Carrollton	46	(3)
Water House, Shakertown	49	(2)
Oval	51	(1)
Last Request	52	(1)
The Dying Empress	53	(1)
Bisecting a Water Lily	54	(1)
Snow Melt	55	(2)
I Go Back	57	(1)
Notes on Poems	58