Poetry. "The word 'anamnesis' relates to how a person arrives at knowledge. In the Platonic sense, it suggests the recollection of ideas which the soul knew in a previous life. In a clinical sense, it is the full medical history as told by a patient; in the Christian sense, it is a Eucharistic prayer; and in immunology, it is a strong immune response. All of these meanings relate to the central concept of this fine collection, how a writer 'finds' and/or 'makes' meaning and deals with the temporary nature of the act, how even our most vital life stories are provisional at best, and how erasure becomes part of the process itself. We are asked to reflect on what previous life brought these sentences to the page, what history of illness or wellness caused the words to form this way, what invisible prayer was erased even before meaning was posited"—Maxine Chernoff, from the Introduction.

Author Hometown: NEW YORK, NY USA



About the author: Lucy Ives is the author of the book ANAMNESIS (Slope Editions, 2009) and the chapbook My Thousand Novel (Cosa Nostra Editions, 2009). Her work has appeared in The Colorado Review, FENCE, Ploughshares, Verse, and other journals. A graduate of Harvard University and the Iowa Writers' Workshop, she is completing a PhD in Comparative Literature at New York University.

Reviews:
Josh Cook in Bookslut
author site
Projct
Books Noted @ Poets.org
Joe Betz @ Center for Literary Publishing
Broc Russell @ Tarpaulin Sky Reviews
Kate Northrop @ Agni online