Synopses & Reviews
Anamnesis is a book-length poem that incorporates the process of revision into its progression. Beginning with the statement, “We can write…,” the poem explores the possibility of poetic narrative as constructed from statements linked not to forward-tending narration, but rather dedicated to the eventual substitution, reformation, or even crossing out of earlier lines. In Anamnesis, the forward movement of writing or telling is accomplished only by correction, in other words, by return. If such corrections finally become demonstrative in their own right, it is because the accrual of fragments forms a kind of narrative of the author's life:I am ten years old and my father's face turns inside its hat and collarAcross a ski slopeThe trees are black in snowIt muffles everythingCross this outWrite, “I jumped off a wall when I was six”Write, “I fell on the blade of an ice skate”Cross this outI was nineDriven by doubt in the effectiveness of linguistic description as we normally know it, Anamnesis is a poem about recollection—though it is also concerned with the Platonic origin of the title word and with the possibility of knowledge that may inhere even in a state of unknowing.
Synopsis
Poetry. "The word 'anamnesis' relates to how a person arrives at knowledge. In the Platonic sense, it suggests the recollection of ideas which the soul knew in a previous life. In a clinical sense, it is the full medical history as told by a patient; in the Christian sense, it is a Eucharistic prayer; and in immunology, it is a strong immune response. All of these meanings relate to the central concept of this fine collection, how a writer 'finds' and/or 'makes' meaning and deals with the temporary nature of the act, how even our most vital life stories are provisional at best, and how erasure becomes part of the process itself. We are asked to reflect on what previous life brought these sentences to the page, what history of illness or wellness caused the words to form this way, what invisible prayer was erased even before meaning was posited"--Maxine Chernoff, from the Introduction.
About the Author
Lucy Ives is the author of the book ANAMNESIS (Slope Editions, 2009) and the chapbook My Thousand Novel (Cosa Nostra Editions, 2009). Her work has appeared in The Colorado Review, FENCE, Ploughshares, Verse, and other journals. A graduate of Harvard University and the Iowa Writers' Workshop, she is completing a PhD in Comparative Literature at New York University.