The Bird is Her Reason
There are some bodies that emerge
into desire as a god
rises from the sea, emotion and
memory hang like dripping clothes--this
want is like
entering that heated red
on the mouth of a Delacroix lion,
stalwart, always that red
which makes
my teeth ache and my skin feel
a hand that has never touched me,
the tree groaning outside becomes
a man who knocks on my bedroom window,
edge of red on gold fur,
the horse, the wild
flip of its head, the rake of claws
across its back, the unfocussed,
swallowed eye.
Rare High Meadow of Which I Might Dream is a book haunted by the
afterlife of medieval theology and literature yet grounded in distinctly
modern quandaries of desire. Connie Voisine's female speakers
reverberate with notes of Marie de France's tragic heroines, but whereas
Marie's poems are places where women's longings quickly bloom and die in
captivity--in towers and dungeons--Voisine uses narrative to suspend the
movement of storytelling. For Voisine, poems are occasions for
philosophical wanderings, extended lyrics that revolve around the
binding and unbinding of desire, with lonely speakers struggling with
the impetus of wanting as well as the necessity of a love affair's end.
With fluency, intelligence, and deeply felt emotional acuity, Rare High
Meadow of Which I Might Dream navigates the heady intersection of
obsessive love and searing loss.
Praise for Cathedral of the North
"Voisine's poetry is wholly unsentimental, tactile, and filled with
unexpected beauty. She is political in the best sense. . . . A dazzling,
brave, and surprising first book."--Denise Duhamel, Ploughshares
