Deposition: Poems [Paperback]

Katie Ford (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 30, 2002

Poet Katie Ford's debut collection confronts God in a language as shifting and ecstatic as divine encounter

This comes out of folklore.
Invented because tenderness at times
must be written in. There was a woman.
There was a cross. But in fact
they have hung him too high
to be touched.
—from "A Woman Wipes the Face of Jesus"

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Rarely is poetry of such extremity—extremity of experience, extremity of spiritual practice and insight—presented in a style which manages to both horrify, and still break the heart, and, if not soothe, then at least find those reaches in the reader where there is compassion so open it awaits no recompense. Here is a poetry of witnessing—theological, emotional, intellectual—a private end to a century's horrors, a reminder that not all things begin again, and that from some reaches of experience instruction shines far less than the beauty of the survivor's report." —Jorie Graham

About the Author

Katie Ford grew up in Oregon and was educated at Whitman College and Harvard University, where she studied theology and poetry and received a Masters of Divinity degree. She currently studies and teaches poetry at the University of Iowa.

Product Details

• Paperback: 72 pages
• Publisher: Graywolf Press (November 30, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1555973744
• ISBN-13: 978-1555973742
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 6.6 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,455,713 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Katie Ford is the author of Deposition and Colosseum. She is the recipient of a Lannan Literary Fellowship and the Larry Levis Reading Award, and Colosseum was named a "Best Book of 2008" by Publishers Weekly. Her poems have been published in The New Yorker, American Poetry Review, Paris Review, and Ploughshares, among other journals. She teaches at Franklin & Marshall College and lives in Philadelphia with her husband, the novelist Josh Emmons.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A lovely book of poetry, December 22, 2008

By 

Gwen Demarest (Washington) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Deposition: Poems (Paperback)

As a woman going through a loss of faith and religion I feel very connected to this book. I feel a connection of a soul level to a religion and faith that I no longer can carry or believe in, yet it still consumes so much of who I am and how I relate to the world.

I really identified with so much of this work. I am glad to have it.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Stunning Debut, April 8, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Deposition: Poems (Paperback)

Katie Ford's "Deposition" is a work of immediate beauty and pain that heralds an important new voice in poetry. In its exploration of faith and its absence, and of commitment and detachment, and of the ways by which the human body falls in and out of the numen's range, it establishes a model of question and response and punctuating silence that is as provocative as it is illuminating. These are wonderful poems. Rarely have I had so much occasion to look up from the page and see the world in sharper focus. Read this book and be unsettled and everything isn't going to be okay and this too is how to move forward.

4 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Coping both with minute yet all-encompassing challenges, February 9, 2003

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Deposition: Poems (Paperback)

Deposition is a collection of free-verse poetry by Katie Ford who in her potent and powerful verse expresses death, the human soul, and the inevitably difficulties of coping both with minute yet all-encompassing challenges. The brief, succinct, and evocative verse brings forward turbulent emotion in this exceptionally well-wrought and highly recommended collection. Last Breath With Belief In It: They blindfolded her put her in the closet for a month/they didn't want her dead grass pulled out they wanted her to believe//grass thickening a field once or twice dark month they had her/sit with them long wooden table why stray why desire and light came//through the torn robe over her eyes out of which birds were cut of which/hoods she listened into the night long into the closet she even thought blessing//even thought grace towards her she began to trust they had faith and truth/years pass ocean and winds and moons pass she is cold she pulls she opens//her closet any morning sees the dark corner she could crawl into its/over now but I beseech thee help her stop believing//help me sometimes I want back in.