Barely Composed: Poems

Fiction & Literature, Poetry, American
Cover of the book Barely Composed: Poems by Alice Fulton, W. W. Norton & Company
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Alice Fulton ISBN: 9780393244892
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company Publication: February 2, 2015
Imprint: W. W. Norton & Company Language: English
Author: Alice Fulton
ISBN: 9780393244892
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Publication: February 2, 2015
Imprint: W. W. Norton & Company
Language: English

"Fulton is exactly the kind of poet Shelley had in mind when he said 'Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.' " —Verse

In this eagerly awaited collection of new poems—her first in over a decade—Alice Fulton reimagines the great lyric subjects—time, death, love—and imbues them with fresh urgency and depth. Barely Composed unveils the emotional devastations that follow trauma or grief—extreme states that threaten psyche and language with disintegration. With rare originality, the poems illuminate the deepest suffering and its aftermath of hypervigilance and numbness, the "formal feeling" described by Emily Dickinson.

Elegies contemplate temporal mysteries—the brief span of human/animal life, the nearly eternal existence of stars and nuclear fuel, the enduring presence of the arts—and offer unsparing glimpses of personal loss and cultural suppressions of truth. Under the duress of silencing, whether chosen or imposed, language warps into something uncanny, rich, and profoundly moving. Various forms of inscription—coloring book to redacted document—enact the combustible power of the unsaid.

Though "anguish is the universal language," there also is joy in the reciprocity of gifts and creativity, intellect and intimacy. Gorgeous vintage rhetorics merge with incandescent contemporary registers, and this recombinant linguistic mix gives rise to poems of disarming power. Visionaries—truth tellers, revelators, beholders—offer testimony as beautiful as it is unsettling.

Shimmering with the "good strangeness of poetry," Barely Composed bears witness to love’s complexities and the fragility of existence. In the midst of cruelty, a world in which “the pound is by the petting zoo,” Fulton’s poems embrace the inextinguishable search for goodness, compassion, and "the principles of tranquility."

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

"Fulton is exactly the kind of poet Shelley had in mind when he said 'Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.' " —Verse

In this eagerly awaited collection of new poems—her first in over a decade—Alice Fulton reimagines the great lyric subjects—time, death, love—and imbues them with fresh urgency and depth. Barely Composed unveils the emotional devastations that follow trauma or grief—extreme states that threaten psyche and language with disintegration. With rare originality, the poems illuminate the deepest suffering and its aftermath of hypervigilance and numbness, the "formal feeling" described by Emily Dickinson.

Elegies contemplate temporal mysteries—the brief span of human/animal life, the nearly eternal existence of stars and nuclear fuel, the enduring presence of the arts—and offer unsparing glimpses of personal loss and cultural suppressions of truth. Under the duress of silencing, whether chosen or imposed, language warps into something uncanny, rich, and profoundly moving. Various forms of inscription—coloring book to redacted document—enact the combustible power of the unsaid.

Though "anguish is the universal language," there also is joy in the reciprocity of gifts and creativity, intellect and intimacy. Gorgeous vintage rhetorics merge with incandescent contemporary registers, and this recombinant linguistic mix gives rise to poems of disarming power. Visionaries—truth tellers, revelators, beholders—offer testimony as beautiful as it is unsettling.

Shimmering with the "good strangeness of poetry," Barely Composed bears witness to love’s complexities and the fragility of existence. In the midst of cruelty, a world in which “the pound is by the petting zoo,” Fulton’s poems embrace the inextinguishable search for goodness, compassion, and "the principles of tranquility."

More books from W. W. Norton & Company

Cover of the book 10 ½ Things No Commencement Speaker Has Ever Said by Alice Fulton
Cover of the book White Center: Poems by Alice Fulton
Cover of the book August and Then Some: A Novel by Alice Fulton
Cover of the book The Bishop's Daughter: A Memoir by Alice Fulton
Cover of the book Symphony in C: Carbon and the Evolution of (Almost) Everything by Alice Fulton
Cover of the book The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason by Alice Fulton
Cover of the book The Soul of Money: Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Life by Alice Fulton
Cover of the book A Life Apart: A Novel by Alice Fulton
Cover of the book Manual for Survival: A Chernobyl Guide to the Future by Alice Fulton
Cover of the book The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies by Alice Fulton
Cover of the book The Language of Food: A Linguist Reads the Menu by Alice Fulton
Cover of the book Sonata Mulattica: Poems by Alice Fulton
Cover of the book The Role of the Scroll: An Illustrated Introduction to Scrolls in the Middle Ages by Alice Fulton
Cover of the book Scottsboro: A Novel by Alice Fulton
Cover of the book "One Hell of a Gamble": Khrushchev, Castro, and Kennedy, 1958-1964 by Alice Fulton
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy