Close this alert
Coloratura On A Silence Found In Many Expressive Systems: Poems
Current price:
$15.99
Publication Date: January 9th, 2024
Publisher:
W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN:
9781324074694
Pages:
144
Otto Bookstore
1 on hand, as of Apr 27 5:14pm
(Poetry )
On Our Shelves Now
Description
A vibrant, kaleidoscopic improvisation on the broken body and questing spirit, from "one of the wisest and most insightful poets in the country" (Ron Charles, Washington Post Book Club).
"I was living in a high-maintenance loneliness," Alice Fulton writes of a devastating accident, and her poems express both reverence and impatience as they search for a brightness palpable as the dark. The result is a brilliant coloratura on the senses. Fulton evokes phantom aromas of vanished perfumes, flowers fragrant only at night, and the ozone scent of snow; marvels at velvet paintings and chimerical colors outside the spectrum; and riffs on a mixtape of ambient sounds: applause, clinking glasses, spectral voices on the radio, and the whispers of a mother to her children.
Coloratura On A Silence Found In Many Expressive Systems extends these tactile mysteries to existential questions of invisible miracles, connection, and faith in the face of silence: "By praying you, I create you," the poet informs an elusive God. Reveling in the stunning possibilities of language, Fulton seeks joy to counteract trauma and grief, empathizes with the silent pathos of animals, and finds solace in art, friendship, and the mysterious power of gifts. Without denying suffering, this enthralling volume extends a fervent prayer for gratitude and healing.
Praise for Coloratura On A Silence Found In Many Expressive Systems: Poems
Fulton is one of the wisest and most insightful poets in the country. The profundity of her verse sometimes comes through long explorations, sometimes in single lines. 'To witness constant miracle is a distraction,' she writes. Let yourself be distracted by her.
— Ron Charles - Washington Post Book Club
Joy and grief circle warily in this nimble collection from one of America’s marquee poets, who balances philosophical intensity with deft wordplay.
— New York Times Book Review
Fulton borrows tropes and theories from science, linguistics, visual art, mathematics…It is this kind of sonic and imaginative range—which puts into conversation the music of what is voiced with what is silent, invisible—that makes it almost impossible to talk about the powerful hold of these poems…Perhaps more than any poet writing today, Fulton takes to heart John Keats’s belief that writing poetry is a ‘vale of soul-making.’…‘You have to listen,’ she admonishes, ‘louder than you sing.’ Is there a more attentive listener than Alice Fulton? A more haunted and haunting singer?
— Lisa Russ Spaar - On the Seawall
Few American poets work so seamlessly and brazenly…The doubled equals sign does for Fulton what the dash did for Emily Dickinson…Fulton has a real dramatic gift; the poems move well and end on their feet…I’m glad to see a poet so endlessly concerned with language, one who writes neither to desert the world nor to exist fully on its terms, who works toward adaptation, not compromise.
— Spencer Hupp - Harvard Review
Fulton masterfully and lyrically levels with anguish... These layered, rich poems expand and test the possibilities of language while offering hope for joy and recovery.
— Publishers Weekly
