Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
Entre chien et loup between dog and wolf. This French colloquialism for twilight informs Jennifer Grotzs debut poetry collection, Cusp. A winner of this years Bakeless Prize for poetry, Grotz explores the peculiar territory of middleness neither dark nor light, not quite familiar but not fully unknown. It is a place with its own dangers, its own knowledge: road signs in a French tunnel remind drivers of their headlights in the temporary darkness; a scratchy recording of the last castrato highlights arts uneasy coupling of inspiration and artifice. Personal, thoughtful, inquisitive, and introspective, these poems reveal Grotzs varied influences, from the quilted fields” of west Texas to a jazz club in Paris, from a sexy rodeo rider to Jean-Jacques Rousseau. It is the dizziness of the foreign and the strangeness of whats all around that gives Cusp its energy, its vitality, signaling the arrival of a distinctive new voice in American verse.
About the Author
Jennifer Grotz's poems have appeared in Tri-Quarterly, Ploughshares, Black Warrior Review, New England Review, Best American Poetry 2000, and elsewhere. She is currently pursuing the PhD in literature and creative writing at the University of Houston. She received her MFA in poetry and MA in english at Indiana University in 1996, and completed her BA at Tulane University in 1993. She has received grants and scholarships from the Oregon Arts Commission, Literary Arts Inc., the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, and the National Society of Arts and Letters. She is also the author of Not Body, a limited edition letterpress chapbook, published in 2001 by Urban Editions.
Table of Contents
Contents Foreword by Yusef Komunyakaa ix I Between Two Road Signs in Northern Territory 3 The Floating World 4 The Last Living Castrato 6 Map to Light You Can Call Blue 7 Fish 8 Virginity 10 Glimpse 11 Ceramics 12 First Glasses 14 Alizarin Crimson 16 The Waves 17 II Try 21 Le Bel Été 22 The Ladder 23 Not This Raw Fluttering 24 Lust 25 Last of the Imperials 27 Tarantismus 28 Unknown 30 Joshua Bell to His Violin 31 Kiss of Judas 32 III Self-Portrait as a Drowned Man 35 Waiting to Wake Up Française 37 Dear John Bunyan, 39 Jazz in Paris 41 Boulevard Slick with Rain 43 Arrival in Rome 45 IV The Train 51 Summary 52 Cusp 53 Self-Portrait as Annunciation 54 The Wolf 56 The Train, 2 57 Mind of Winter 58 Inevitable 59 Elegy 60 Between Dog and Wolf 62