Full Description
Tess Gallagher's new poems are suspended between contradiction and beauty. Is, Is Not upends our notions of linear time, evokes the spirit and sanctity of place, and journeys toward discovering the full capacity of language. Gallagher's poems reverberate with the inward clarity of a bell struck on a mountaintop and hover daringly at the threshold of what language can nearly deliver while offering alternative corollaries as gifts of its failures. Guided by humour, grace, and a deep inquiry into the natural world, every poem nudges us toward moments of awe. How else except by delight and velocity would we discover the miracle within the ordinary? Gallagher claims many Wests - the Northwest of America, the north-west of Ireland, and a West even further to the edge, beyond the physical. These landscapes are charged with invisible energies and inhabited by the people, living and dead, who shape Gallagher's poems and life. Restorative in every sense, Is, Is Not is the kind of book that takes a lifetime to write - a book of the spirit made manifest by the poet's unrelenting gaze and her intimate engagement with the mysteries that keep us reaching.
Contents
Recognition 1
i
In the Company of Flowers 5
Almost Lost Moment 6
Ambition 7
Your Dog Playing with a Coyote 9
Ability to Hold Territory 10
Blind Dog/Seeing Girl 12
Doe Browsing Salal Berries 14
ii
Little Inside Out Dream, 17
Dream Cancel 19
Stolen Dress 21
Glass Impresses 23
Hummingbird-Mind 25
One Deer at Dusk 26
iii
Correction 31
Sully 33
Retroactive Father 36
Earth 38
The Seemingly Domesticated 39
Reaching 41
Right-Minded Person 44
In the Too-Bright Café 45
iv
Let's Store These Hours 51
Season of Burnt-Out Candelabras 53
The Branches of the Maple 56
Yet to Be Born Weather 57
I Want to Be Loved Like Somebody's Beloved Dog in America 59
While I Was Away 63
v
Without 67
Deer Path Enigma 69
The Favorite Cup 70
What Does It Say 71
vi
Bus to Belfast 75
Is, Is Not 76
As the Diamond 78
During the Montenegrin Poetry Reading 81
Curfew 83
Eddie's Steps 84
Four-Footed 86
The Gold Dust of the Linden Trees 88
Blue Eyelid Lifting 91
vii
Button, Button 95
Breath 99
To an Irishman Painting in the Rain 100
Encounter 102
Planet Greece 103
Cloud-Path 105
viii
Oliver 109
A "Sit" with Eileen 112
Remembering Each Other While Together 115
Opening 117
Word of Mouth 118
Daylong Visitor Caress 123
March Moon Three Stars 125
Afterword: Writing from the Edge: A Poet of Two Northwests 127
Notes 135
Acknowledgments 139
