Full Description
These poems function as experiments in epistemology. Attentive to the ways that sensory experiences coalesce into cognition and the ways cognition remains always thoroughly sensory, these poems experiment with the complex ways in which being in the world means thinking with one's whole body. By occupying a variety of shifting subject positions, making use of various forms (both traditional and nonce forms), and engaging both explicitly and implicitly with texts from various traditions, these poems seek to address the cognitive, spiritual and erotic experiences, longings and desires that come with living in the material world.
These concerns come into especially intense focus in the Creature poems. While the Creature is as human as anyone else, he has certain misgivings about the old term 'human,' especially insofar as it is associated with hierarchical notions of human domination that can sometimes slide into abuse. The Creature poems explore the subject's continuity with the world, including the world of artifice and technology. The Creature longs for a deeper connection to the world and to the divine, though he can experience great confusion about where to find either. The Creature is also thoroughly textual, and he longs for a new language in terms of which he can more truly live.
Contents
1 Their Solitary Way
The Millennium Turning
To the Reader
Our Host Confused
'Evening Faces'
History
Plato's House
Summer
Traveler
What is Found
'Why Not Be Totally Changed into Fire?'
Such Blessing
'Their Solitary Way'
The Operation
Roughening
2 A Man Who Was Afraid of Language
A Man Who Was Afraid of Language
The Monastery Gate
A Priest I Once
What Was to Happen Already Occurred
Drifting
Summer Work
What is Revealed
Harold Graves Considers the Last Decade
River Front Bar
At the Archabbey
Colloquy
Sanctuary
Country House
Monuments
Psalm in a Time of War
3 Creature
Creature's Introduction
Creature Downcast
The Creature Bids Farewell to His Mate
Creature Arrested
Creature Back Home
The Creature Entranced
Creature's Class War
The Creature Enraged
Creature at the River Front
Creature in Extremis
The Creature Midway
Creature's First Memory
The Creature's Thanksgiving
The Creature at Leisure
Creature's Morning Song
Creature Remembers His Mate
Creature at the Mall
Creature in Congruence with the Moon
Summa Contra Creature
Creature's Love Song
Creature's Nightmare
The Creature's Evening
Creature at a Party
Creature's Lament
Creature by the Window
Creature's Pronouncement
Creature Lights a Candle
The Creature Outside
The Creature on Saturday
Creature's Confession
Creature on Delivery
Creature at Rest
The Creature Goes Home Again
The Creature's Activism
Creature at the Airport
Creature on Art
The Creature's Summa
Creature on the Town
Creature on the Fourth of July
The Creature on His Beat
Creature at Work
Creature Considers the Dark
Creature Meets the Executioner
The Creature's Reverie
The Creature Walking
The Creature's Sadness
Creature at the Piano
The Creature Searching
The Creature in Repose
