The Year of the Femme: Iowa Poetry Prize Winning Collection - Perfect for Book Clubs, Poetry Readings & Literary Gifts
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Product Description
“At the edge of a field a thought waits,” writes Cassie Donish, in her collection that explores the conflicting diplomacies of body and thought while stranding us in a field, in a hospital, on a shoreline. These are poems that assess and dwell in a sensual, fantastically queer mode. Here is a voice slowed by an erotics suffused with pain, quickened by discovery. In masterful long poems and refracted lyrics, Donish flips the coin of subjectivity; different and potentially dangerous faces are revealed in turn. With lyricism as generous as it is exact, Donish tunes her writing as much to the colors, textures, and rhythms of daily life as to what violates daily life—what changes it from within and without.
Customer Reviews
The Year of the Femme by Cassie Donish is a 2018 Iowa Poetry Prize-winning collection. Donish holds a BA in English and comparative religions from the University of Washington, and an MA in human geography from the University of Oregon. She currently teaches classes at the University of Missouri in Columbia, where she's pursuing a Ph.D. in literature and creative writing.The collection opens with "Portrait of a Woman, Mid-Fall." A woman alone thinks of life and dreams while at the same time autumn is in view out the window. There seems to be a trap between security -- man or a dog, happiness or misery. There is a binary world that restricts dreams and time that limits choices. The yellow leaves dance on the wind while the red leaves crunch as they are crushed underfoot. Every day the number of leaves on the trees decrease and the number on the ground increase -- like discarded dreams. The woman wishes she can stop the leaves from changing merely because she knows she cannot. One thing cannot exist without its opposite.Arrival is not a rival of departureThe two have to work together to make anything happenAll the clocks move together through timeDonish uses language and creates stunning images. Poems in the second section combine memories and impressions:Daylight glinting off dimes in the grassDaylight, and our teeth don’t feeldifferent yetDaylight on top of the city, on topof the lakeDaylight through a sieve of fingersMimics the skyscrapers"Meanwhile, in a Galaxy"The final section, "The Year of the Femme," revisits the concept of the binary in two-part poems. The first part consists of prose poetry, complete sentences, and formed in a near perfect block. The other element of the verse is chaotic in the arrangement of phrases and line breaks. Each half compliments the other much like arrival and departure. A wonderful collection of poetry. Truly, one of the best in contemporary poetry.Available April 1, 2019
