Politically charged and deeply insightful, this critical exploration of poetry maps the interior of our deepest feelings and fears through reflections on money, commerce, and the capitalist machine. Allegorically referencing the topical issues of labor and finance, each piece turns current concerns into timeless verse, with unrelenting courage and candor. Offering a modern lyrical style that reflects a lineage of the great Objectivists, each tautly crafted poem observes the intimacies and alienations of popular culture.
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"The words 'barn' and 'bank' animate the economies and concerns of our lives. Barn Burned, Then implicates Objectivism in this imagining, to create poems of the conglomerate of bank and barn—words shown to be made of contingent cultural forces." —Marjorie Welish, poet, The Annotated "Here" and Selected Poems
"I want to reproduce Bob Perelman's blurb from the back, which I think is an interesting and good entry-point into the book, as well as this specific poem: 'Michelle Taransky takes her title from Masahide’s 17th century haiku: Barn’s burnt down – / now / I can see the moon.' There, physical loss is a gateway to an ecstatic gain of focus.' Can this explain the internal logic of the poem? The destruction that comes to the fore at the end of the poem is predicted by the continual broken-ness of the lines, of the phrases." —A Compulsive Reader
About the Author
Michelle Taransky is a poet whose work has been published in the Denver Quarterly, Drunken Boat, and VOLT. She is winner of the 2008 Omnidawn Poetry Prize and the coauthor of the chapbook, The Plans Caution. She lives in Philadelphia.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I admit, that I may not be the usual demographic for the work of Michelle Taransky. I tend to gravitate more towards straight-forwardly narrative poetry, but even I can't help but succumb to the charms of Taransky's work in "Barn Burned, Then."
You should know that the barn in the book's title is, ostensibly, the subject of the collection, but what the barn (and the farm, etc...) represents can seemingly change from poem to poem.
When people use the word "playful," it tends to evoke a comedic tone. Taransky's work can be humorous, but not always. And yet, I feel like there is always a sense of play in her poetry.
Like a poetic Rube Goldberg contraption, Taransky's work invites you to figure out little puzzles in order to launch you into the next section of the work. To readers more familiar with narrative work, poems in a first (easy) pass might seem confusing, or confounding. But spend a little time with the poem, unlocking each gem, and they warm right up.
You should know that the barn in the book's title is, ostensibly, the subject of the collection, but what the barn (and the farm, etc...) represents can seemingly change from poem to poem.
When people use the word "playful," it tends to evoke a comedic tone. Taransky's work can be humorous, but not always. And yet, I feel like there is always a sense of play in her poetry.
Like a poetic Rube Goldberg contraption, Taransky's work invites you to figure out little puzzles in order to launch you into the next section of the work. To readers more familiar with narrative work, poems in a first (easy) pass might seem confusing, or confounding. But spend a little time with the poem, unlocking each gem, and they warm right up.
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