Desdemona's Fire [Paperback]

Ruth Ellen Kocher (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 30, 1999

This is the author s first book and winner of the 1999 Naomi Long Madgett Poetry Award. While miscegenation has always been more a part of American history than many want to admit, Desdemona s Fire journeys through this often forbidden landscape in poems that are sometimes painfully poignant, yet fresh in their imagery and detail.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"...At the heart of these stunning poems is a precise and imaginative examination of the thin line that separates beauty and terror, wisdom and madness, tolerance and hatred." --Bruce Weigl

"The classical argument, the channeled mind stream, has a unique surface property; it brings commerce to two cultures. Here, argument becomes sublime and here the poet is truly a carrier of ladders and I think, as the Old Testament author intended, a carrier of ladders has the horizontal strength almost for a perfect burden. --Norman Dubie

Asthma
At 57, My Father Learns To Grow Things
Braiding
The Carpenter's Dream
Desdemona's Fire
Esu Speaks The Moon
Flowers For Aurelia
The Girl Gymnast
Hecate In The City
Instruction
The Last
Liturgy Of The Light-skinned
Melange: A Commencement
Message From The Snowbound Girl
The Migrant
My Mother As Daedalus
Neighborhood
Odyssea Home
Palace Cleopatra
Poem To A Jazz Man
Searching For The Zebra Finch
The Siren's Sound
Sisters
Susan's Hair
Susquehanna: The Projects
Talking With The Buddha
Water
The Watering Stone
White Boys Who Sing The Blues
Yellow Girl
--Table of Poems from Poem Finder

From the Publisher

Winner of the 1999 Naomi Long Madgett Poetry Award

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 61 pages
• Publisher: Lotus Pr; 1 edition (April 30, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0916418839
• ISBN-13: 978-0916418830
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.4 x 0.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,320,364 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Stunning and Finely-Crafted Book!, June 23, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Desdemona's Fire (Paperback)

There is nothing old here--this book is all new energy, confronting a much-ignored subject in American letters: interraciality and the politics of identity and gender. Kocher can't go wrong with poems like "Braiding" and "My Mother as Daedalus" which weave humor, wisdom and irony with the skill of a five-book veteran. I'm looking forward to the next one!!!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant!, June 10, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Desdemona's Fire (Paperback)

"Desdemona's Fire" is a fearless book. It is fearless in its confrontation with pain. It is fearless in its transformation of hatred into wisdom. But that does not quite describe the many raptures of the verse. In the poem, "The Siren's Sound," the speaker " . . . hear[s] the wild hearts of strangers/ fighting for their lives." It is that type of listening that this verse demands. We must listen to this brave new voice like children listening to the voice of a loved one speak of experience through parable. We must surrender ourselves to these poems, let them wash over us as if drenched in flame.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Delightful, May 11, 2001

By 

a reader (West Virginia United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Desdemona's Fire (Paperback)

Ms. Kocher's first book gives me everything I crave as a reader of poetry. Fearlessness, clarity, abandon, and form. The consistently elegant music of her work is so inviting I read the whole book three times in two days! It is mesmerizing. The questions these poems ask--what happens after death? Who am I? How does loss change to peace?--are the questions that make poetry matter. In a time when many poets hide behind their music, Kocher's subtle shifts in rhythm deepen the content and reward the reader with a clarity I for one have come to need. Read "Hecate in the City" and be dazzled. Read "Susan's Hair" and delight in the lush life of this book.