We Mad Climb Shaky Ladders

by Wagner, Pamela Spiro

• ISBN13: 9781933880105
• ISBN10: 1933880104
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-06-30
• Publisher: Cavankerry Pr Ltd

Summary

"...The word "mad'' may conjure up notions that are either arty or primitive. Neither would apply in this case. One of the more stunning qualities of these poems is their composure, their lack of interest in histrionics. The poet's ability to examine her behavior is both edifying and harrowing. A poem such as "Offering," that speaks to the narrator's burning herself with a lighted cigarette, is remarkable in its ability to turn and turn again as it considers the behavior...One realizes that once this poem was written this poet could write any poem because she has the ability to indulge metaphor yet not let up a jot on the terror of real circumstances. Whatever else has befallen her, in her poems she seems incapable of backing down..."--Baron Wormser

Author Biography

PAMELA SPIRO WAGNER is a prize-winning writer who suffers from schizophrenia, complicated by narcolepsy and CNS Lyme disease. One of a pair of identical twins, she attended Brown University graduating magna cum laude. She subsequently attended medical school for a little over a year before being hospitalized for psychiatric care.

Table of Contents

Dedication

How to Read a Poem: Beginner's Manual

Introduction

Foreword

Beginnings

Eating the Earth

Solo for Two

Here

Ambivalence

Junior Miss

Fusion

My Mother was Medea

Our Mothers' Daughters

Beggar at the Feast

Evening Land

Illness

Offering

To a Repeat Offender

Food Sentence

Paranoia

Poem in Which Paranoia Strikes at the Grocery Store

Spassky in Reykjavick, 1972

Voices

Barricade

Acrophobia

To Those Who Believe We Are Living in the Last Days, I Say

Manic-Depressive

Caduceus

On Radio Waves and Me, Myself, and I

The Long and Short of the Swiss

Verdict: Guilty of a Pulse

Grandiose

Word Salad

Mortal Choices

The Catatonic Speaks

No

Too Much

Recovery

Recuperating

Anabasis

After the Fact

What to do with a Dream

What you Know and When you Know It

Poem That Can Forget but Not Forgive

The Poet at a School Dance

Reunion

Coping

Efficacious Prayer

Mea Culpa

In Memoriam Memoriae

Words Before the Party

Rehearsal

Spelling Bee

Lou Gehrig's Man

Three, for Those Left Behind

You Were a Poet Once

Poem

Poem Written While the Refrigerator Defrosts

Woman Reading Her Mail

The Prayers of a Mathematician

Beginning Again

To Forgive Is...

Acknowledgments

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