My Shining Archipelago (Yale Series of Younger Poets)

ISBN: 0274737434

Author: Ansel, Talvikki

Condition: New

The winner of the 1996 Yale Series of Younger Poets competition is Talvikki Ansel for My Shining Archipelago."Ansel`s poetry is refreshingly original," says the distinguished poet and contest judge James Dickey. "She renders the heat, the closeness, the mystery, and the terrible fear of the undisclosed, the lurking, the waiting to happen. This is true imagination, true craft."Flemish BeautyYesterday, all winter,I had not thought of pears, considered:pear. The tear-shaped, papery core,precise seeds. This one channeledthrough with worm tunnels.Bruises, a rotten half-sometimes theres nothing leftto drop into the pot.That phraseI could have said: you stillhave usThe knifeslides easily beneath the skins,top to base, spiralingthem away.The insubstantial us.It could as well be the peartalking to the river, turning tothe grass (you still have us).Besides, its just mea pear in my hand (the slop bucket fullof peels)-and sometimes, yes, thatseems enough: a pear-this larger one,yellow-green, turning to red:Duchess maybe, Devoe,or what I want to call it: FlemishBeauty.When I cant sleep,Ill hold my hand as if I helda pear, my fingers mimickingthe curve. The same curveas the newel postIve used for years, swingingmyself up to the landing, alwaysthrowing my weight back. And alwaysnails loosening, mid-bound.