Firekeeper (Trade) [Paperback]

Pattiann Rogers (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Sometimes you need to get away from asphalt and smog and take a walk in the woods. Rogers has long been a favorite poet of mine because she not only facilitates an escape into nature, she authorizes it. In this collection of her newer and her best poetry, we metaphorically move throughout the places that nature has prepared for us as one of its own offspring. Take a walk on Rogers's path; it's just a little wild--and exceptionally peace-giving.

From Publishers Weekly

It will be almost impossible for a reader to calmly meander through Rogers's (Geocentric) new collection of poems; they strong-arm us with poetic gymnastics, blending scientific theory with luscious poetic rhythms. While displaying her perpetually curious intelligence at play, Rogers shows her virtuosity-to marvelous effect-in exploring sensory perception. She sports with literal constructs; scoffs at the tolerant dead, "oblivious to abuse"; composes a manual for walking on water; and juxtaposes unlikely creatures (e.g., a whale and a sea of iris). As she notes, "By this juxtaposition we can know/ That someone exceptional, in a moment of abandon,/ Pressing fresh iris to his face in the dark,/ Has taken the whale completely into his heart." One can fault Rogers's poems only for being too constantly exuberant, fanciful and joyous; the keynote of New Age bucolic rarely falters. The book offers an extraordinary reading experience as she celebrates pure being: "Can't you see?/ You, riding along with all its passengers,/ standing up, laughing now, waving/ your hat, hallooing and hallooing?"
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 260 pages
• Publisher: Milkweed Editions; 1st edition (September 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1571314008
• ISBN-13: 978-1571314000
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,648,710 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 Poems Beyond Poetry, January 23, 1998

By 

[e-mail] (Clarks Summit, PA, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Firekeeper (Trade) (Paperback)

As a general rule, I dislike reading poetry. However, someone recommended this book to me, and reading it has changed not only my view of poetry but how I think in the world. Crafted with care, the poems found in this volume offer an intimate view of nature, life, and a basics that could be termed humanity. Science and nature are blended with a profound yet simple eloquence in poetry that makes the English language dance.As a general rule, I dislike reading poetry. However, someone recommended this book to me, and reading it has changed not only my view of poetry but how I think in the world. Crafted with care, the poems found in this volume offer an intimate view of nature, life, and something basic that could be termed humanity. Science and nature are blended with a profound yet simple eloquence in poetry that makes the English language dance.

5.0 out of 5 stars Find It, Keep It!, December 7, 2011

By 

William B. Jones - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Firekeeper (Trade) (Paperback)

"Someone said my real name to me
last night...And I rose easily to my name
as if over the rim of earth at dawn..."

-- from "The Power of Sun", Pattiann Rogers (in "Firekeeper" 1994)

If you need poems like the one above, you need Pattiann Rogers. If you need the rest of this poem, you need "Firekeeper" -- the purple, 1994 edition.

Pattiann Rogers is a stunning poet, one whom I was delighted to hear in person at Chautauqua Institute, New York. When invited to bring poems to share on retreat, I was equally delighted to find a second-hand copy of her "Firekeeper" at a bookstore outside Ithaca. Oddly, though, the selections in the older, purple-covered edition I picked up there and the newer, red one I had left at home do not match up entirely. Thus you will find her exquisite "The Power of Sun" in the former, but not in the latter.

Also among the missing in the "expanded", 2005 edition (from the "Old Spiral of Conception" poems, themselves new to the 1994 "Firekeeper") are "The Need to Adore", "God Alone", and "Another Little God". Firekeeper II is thus a survey of her wider compass over time; Firekeeper I (or her later, collected "Song of the World Becoming") is required for a full reading of the "Old Spiral of Conception" poems. Also of note: in "The Dream of the Marsh Wren: Writing As Reciprocal Creation", Rogers offers insight into her creative process.

5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing, inspiring..., September 13, 2002

By 

"flapdoodlelicious" (Dallas) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Firekeeper (Trade) (Paperback)

Pattiann rogers writes with the kind of grace that words were invented for. Her poems are often funny, sometimes sad, and always thought-provoking. I highly recommend her book for both those who love poems and those who usually do not. Wonderful book...