Noose and Hook - Pitt Poetry Series | Award-Winning Poetry Collection for Literature Lovers | Perfect for Book Clubs & Poetry Readings

Lynn Emanuel's "Noose and Hook" is difficult to summarize for it covers a diverse terrain, yet it is one of the finest, quirkiest and most inventive collections of poetry published in recent memory. It is also one of the most cohesive. I usually like to dip into books of poetry like a Whitman's sampler, skipping around here and there over weeks, months, years. Yet Emanuel's book deserves a cover-to-cover reading, which best elucidates the transformation of the poet through various meditations on grief, violence, fate, the universe, love, filial responsibility and feelings and so on. Her widely admired poem, "Dear Final Journey"--which is a phenomenal accomplishment on its own--here makes an indelible mark as the coda to a fascinating collection. Emanuel proves to be not only a great poet but a truly interesting thinker.Especially rewarding is Emanuel's fearless and experimental metamorphosis into a "dog" character-narrator, which peaks in the middle of the book with a vernacular play in two acts, "The Mongrelogues" in which the main character, Dogg (a Dog in Dogg's clothing) experiences various aspects of human life. This is more than extraordinary anthropomorphism: it is lyrical, creative and entertaining narrative drama with enough cleverness to give Emanuel a firm place at the table of our most thoughtful writers. I've always enjoyed her poetry but with "Noose and Hook" I'm a real fan.