Alcestis Machine

Poems

Häftad, Engelska, 2024

163 kr

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Beskrivning

Inspired by the Greek myth of Alcestis, this poetry collection brings to life myriad voices who venture beyond the known world and exist between realities.In Greek mythology, Alcestis descends to the mysterious kingdom of death in her beloved’s place. In The Alcestis Machine, Carolyn Oliver’s second poetry collection, loss and queer desire echo across the multiverse. “In another life, I’m a . . .” sea witch or swineherd, vampire or troubadour, florist or fossil or museum guard, Oliver writes. These parallel personas inhabit space stations and medieval villages, excavate the Devonian seabed, and plumb a subterranean Anthropocene. In possible futures and imagined pasts, they might encounter “all wrong turns and broken signs” or carry “a suitcase full of stars.”Oliver’s poems are animated by lush, unsettling verse and forms both traditional and experimental. The Alcestis Machine demonstrates how very present absence can be and how desire knows no boundaries. In neighborhood subdivisions or the vast reaches of space, it’s impossible to know “whose time is slipping / again.” Anyone “could come loose / from gravity’s shine.”

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum:2024-10-15
Mått:152 x 229 x 10 mm
Vikt:113 g
Format:Häftad
Språk:Engelska
Antal sidor:88
Förlag:Acre Books
ISBN:9781946724809

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Poesi inom Skönlitteratur

Mer om författaren

Carolyn Oliver is the author of Inside the Storm I Want to Touch the Tremble. Her most recent chapbook is Night Ocean. Born in Buffalo and raised in Ohio, she now lives with her family in Massachusetts. Her website is carolynoliver.net.

Recensioner i media

"Celestial and lush, Carolyn Oliver’s second poetry collection, The Alcestis Machine, vibrates with connection. The anaphoric incantation 'In another life' opens many of the collection’s poems, taking the reader through a lyric, imaginative wilderness of possibility. I, or we, become—through Oliver’s inventive and formally ambitious lens—cosmologists, orchards, and interpreters, traveling through galaxies, relationships, and climates with our 'suitcase[s] full of stars.' And when we zoom in close to life’s intimacies, like 'the pleasure / of warm water coursing over my hands // after I peeled tonight’s potatoes,' Oliver’s acts of witness tenderly move us from the cosmos to deep inside the body. I am grateful to The Alcestis Machine for all that it illuminates, both as a poet and as an awe-filled reader."

Innehållsförteckning

Blueshift*WinterFrost HeavesSpace AgeThe Woman with the Suitcase Full of StarsGlass HoursManifestationFigure Swimming AloneThis Splenda Packet Advises Me, “Be the ENERGY You Want to Attract”TrajectoriesThe Baltimore MonetStrange AttractorLetter to the Apprentice JewelerNyctinastySalt MarshFlowers for the VirginCelestial BodiesSelf-Portrait as IlluminationMemphis Facula: Shot List for Improvised Documentary*The Archaeoetymologist Recovers Bliss from the RiverbedDeep LearningThe BuilderWalking AloneLux HoursLetter to the woman weighing lemons at the grocery storePoppiesEquilibriumSpirit LevelComing Back from the WeddingLove Poem in High HumidityMercyDevonianSunrise HouseDe ProfundisIn the DistanceNight FlightThe Alcestis Machine*Mast YearNotesAcknowledgments