Description
Poetry. "WE STEP INTO THE SEA collects over three decades of work by one of the most singular voices in contemporary American poetry. It tells the story of a lyric poet who both probes and sheds the self in search of a 'we,' not to belong to, but rather, to care for, to serve: 'I will hold us safely together, / we will consider the falling whole.' In these poems of passive resistance and active celebration, we are given a panoramic view of a poet who insists that experimentation is an ethical imperative, one that will help us forge a kingdom of compassion that runs counter to empire. From her home in the desert, Keelan sees an alternative beauty that resists 'the beauty of human enterprise, its folly, from above / Greening a desert.' She sees instead 'the glory of the red rocks,' and in this gift of a book, she shows us this glory at the very moment when we most need to see it for ourselves."—Sasha Steensen
Author Bio
Claudia Keelan is the author of several collections of poetry, including WE STEP INTO THE SEA (Barrow Street Press, 2018), O, HEART (Barrow Street Press, 2014), MISSING HER (New Issues Press, 2009), The Secularist (finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Award), and Utopic (Beatrice Hawley Award, 2001). A book of translations, Truth of My Songs: The Poems of the Trobairitz, is forthcoming from Omnidawn in 2015. Ecstatic Émigré, essays written for The American Poetry Review, is still underway. She is Professor of English and Director of Creative Writing at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
Author City: LAS VEGAS, NV USA