Synopses & Reviews
Myra Schneider’s new collection of poetry brings a fresh sense of reality to some well-known images. Color is the keynote of the book, moving through Matisse, Hockney, and Chagall. Sound is explored too, in Mahler and Beethoven. Often we find skin-deep assumptions turned around: the gold of ancient Crete is not its jewelry but olives; a postbox’s bright exterior conceals menace; a major 20th-century artist only started painting by chance at the age of 20; and the long poem “Minotaur” makes it clear that the Minotaur is no monster, Theseus no hero. Focusing on art and myth, this collection is deeply attentive to women’s concerns and experiences.
Review
"Myra Schneider has become an essential poet. Nobody else manages her fusion of the domestic and the global as well. Nobody else manages her fusion of the sensual and the spiritual as well." —ACUMEN
About the Author
Myra Schneider is the author of five collections of poetry: Circling the Core, Exits, Insisting on Yellow, Multiplying the Moon, and The Panic Bird. Her poem “Goulash” was short-listed for the Forward Prize for the Best Single Poem in 2007. She has coedited several anthologies of poetry by contemporary women writers.