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Wayward
About This Book
Since her early poems, Katharine Coles has been known as a poet who isn’t afraid to tackle big subjects that occupy the intersections of art and science, including how we know what is true (if we do). Driven by her insatiable curiosity and relying on a use of form and elision so deft it amounts to sleight-of-hand, Coles brings these big questions into small spaces in her seventh book, Wayward, moving the reader at mind-speed through brief meditations on love, marriage, and family; the permeable boundaries of the self; death; and perception. Though her subjects are deeply serious, Coles’ primary tools for addressing them include her wry wit and agile intelligence, which, taking nothing for granted, she deploys to examine our basic assumptions about the world and our experience within it. As always, Coles here uses technical skill to move her thinking in new directions—many of them at once.
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HOW WE SING
And lambkins. With bat-wings
With our heads on our sleeves. From
The backs of dragons. Bohemian,
Penises wagging, breasts akimbo, mouthing
Whetted. Bare faced. Captive. In time.
CANIS SOLLICITOR
And roll in the cool hollow
A bone you buried last year
You have no past or future, no
What if youâre the hard
Be wrong, hold together.
LANDSCAPE WITH ANGEL
Over soft hills and furrows with no apparent
Energy or effort, feathers and frock
And hairdo all unfluttered. Urgency
Body, or would if this messenger didnât
Look stiff as a board surfing the air. While
Weâre at it, why does it wear clothes? No small
No secret conceals itself in cunning folds.
(If itâs earthâs, not heavenâs, the landscape
Which might be tended fires and might be wild,
On the edge of hope, the edge of blow-up.)
WAYWARD
Or not. After, back, in, too,
Like a dog or some hero
Guided tour of hell. Some of us,
Others take to sea to find
Contain them. I might have
Arms than I can tell what
In my palms or odd
Unbiddable. Good
Or just feed themâIâd rather
Mean in numbers or how
And blisses. East, west: no way
To count, how far to go.
THE ARCHIMEDES PALIMPSEST
Over. Curious mathematics.A leaf
The edge of vision, a style of inquiryall there is
Give it up: evangelists here live in
(Leavesdisappear in flight)
A set of pieces can be
Archimedes draw? Straight lines
(Old-time preachers again)more like
A radical idealization. If time is not a river
Into another then bleeds out accumulated
Improvement. The past
And layers recoverable:
Not known.
ANNUNCIATION
Between them, not to them. Itâs only that
The angel doesnât matter, nor the virgin.
A blade of light scissors the air
A glancing blow, or a kind of cleaving,
A blade of light. Scissor the air
Wide open, then it happens:
Of? Or to? So something else can enter.
Open wide then. It happens
Those two forget themselves, not knowingâ
And, in entering, replace them.
We canât forget ourselves. Knowing
Carelessness has brought us to the point
The angel doesnât matter, nor the virgin.
Carelessness has brought us to the point.
What is matters. What occurs, occurs.
THE NEW DAY
And helmeted, muscle-bound
That sword a little higher
Tight. Inser...
Table of contents
- Cover Page
- Title Page
- Copyright page
- Acknowledgments
- â
- Notes
- Biographical Note
- Back Cover