Description
Poetry. "Deborah Poe's 19th century heroine Hélène finds herself in the elaborate trap of a 'factory-convent,' manufacturing silk in western France—and her only release is the fantasy of producing it, instead, in China. Poe handles the implications and associations of these very different worlds with wrenching clarity. But finally, it is language—'We all our song within which voice finds its own escape'—that offers the window through which Hélène, and we, effect that escape. Poe's handling of language throughout the book is nothing less than liberating, and yet it's also arresting—it's often, in short, simply breathtaking, while her acrobatically precise and dynamic balance between research and attention allows the reader to be simultaneously transported beyond and riveted to the present. A major accomplishment, and a haunting one."—Cole Swensen
"In this remarkable lineated novella, Deborah Poe's concentrated images accrete & transform: 'orange-edged' becomes 'gold,' silk & lives are bartered, nuns see yet do not say. Poe's brilliantly rhythmic prose lines both interrogate & untangle fixed notions of genre & narration, spinning conversation between white spaces while experimenting with utterance & its antecedent silences; 'I could think of no conversation to start' becomes 'I can feel your loom all the way over here/a chest silent, full of light.' In parts old-fashioned, sepia, handwritten, in parts postmodern patchwork lyric, the artist behind this work is generously capable of holding the paradox of distance & disappearance in proximity, inviting us to consider ceasing 'the mind's clattering' via an astonishingly moving feminist lullaby to times & places past."—Sandra Doller
Author Bio
Deborah Poe is the author of the poetry collections THE LAST WILL BE STONE, TOO (Stockport Flats, 2013), ELEMENTS (Stockport Flats, 2010), and Our Parenthetical Ontology (CustomWords, 2008) , as well as a novella in verse, HÉLÈNE (Furniture Press Books, 2012). In addition, Deborah is co-editor of Between Worlds: An Anthology of Fiction and Criticism (Peter Lang Publishers, 2012). She is also co-editing a collection of Hudson Valley innovative poetry, In/Filtration: An Anthology of Innovative Hudson Valley Poetics (Station Hill Press of Barrytown, 2013). Deborah's poetry is forthcoming or has appeared in journals such as Handsome, 1913, Shampoo, DENVER QUARTERLY, The Dictionary Project, Yew Journal, PEEP/SHOW, Bone Bouquet, Peaches & Bats, Mantis, Horse Less Review, Colorado Review, Ploughshares, and Filter Literary Journal. Her fiction has appeared in Conversations Across Borders, Fact-Simile Magazine, Night Train, SIDEBROW, A Picture's Worth, Vibrant Gray, and Midway Journal. Deborah's poetry and fiction have also appeared in the anthologies A SING ECONOMY (Flim Forum Press, 2008) and Fingernails Across the Chalkboard: Poetry and Prose on HIV/AIDS From the Black Diaspora (Third World Press, 2007). Deborah Poe is assistant professor of English at Pace University, founder and curator of the annual Handmade/Homemade Exhibit, and guest curator for Trickhouse. She has also taught as afternoon faculty at the Port Townsend Writer's Workshop in Washington and Casa Libre en La Solana in Tucson.
Author City: CARMEL, NY USA