Flying in Water [Paperback]

Barbara Tomash (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1, 2006

WINNER OF THE WINNOW PRESS OPEN BOOK AWARD IN POETRY "Because Tomash has a profound understanding of the materials of her art, she's aware that the tangibility of such risk must be palpable for her reader in the geography of the line, line as shoreline, as form that is against and in communion with absence, silence. By the time her reader finds her line, 'In the darkness, many betrayals of darkness,' the terrain is at once realized as spirtiual, philosophic, linguistic, political, and wide, wide open. . . . "These poems are the most unrushed I've read in years. When she asks, "if this world is merely distances, is it not / merely beautiful?' I feel called up, called in. What a gift her invitation is." --Kathleen Peirce, from the Judge's Citation "In Barbara Tomash's beautifully latticed prose poem series, FLYING IN WATER, the reader is treated to the inner workings of a writer thinking about what it means to be a woman in language. One is reminded of Virginia Woolf's THE WAVES, in which the dazzling thoughts of fictive narrators push language closer to truth. The 'she' of Tomash's suite of poems is alert to all the clarity of living and its complex shadows. These poems are gem-like, using 'her voice's cool sleeve,' 'the perfect tool to hammer white open.' And in all of the poems there is also the weight of eternity, of worlds continuing after this particular voice has ended." --Maxine Chernoff "This extended and arresting interior portrait moves from the world to self-awareness to language-awareness with liquid ease: 'the drawing of a leaf to look like a leaf // She is drawn to abstraction. She makes her mark. It is shaped like a leaf that looks like the face of an owl. If language were an arrow and the material world the target, she would never hit. She takes aim at the leaf.' With her sequence of meditative prose vignettes, Barbara Tomash takes aim and makes her mark. FLYING IN WATER is wonderful poetry." --Carol Snow "FLYING IN WATER is an exemplary boo

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Barbara Tomash was born in Washington, D.C., and raised in Los Angeles. She worked extensively as a multimedia artist before her creative interests turned her toward writing. In 1998, she received her MFA in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University, where she now teaches. Her poetry has appeared widely in literary journals, including New American Writing, Colorado Review, and ZYZZYVA. Ms. Tomash is currenly working on a collaborative project with the New York filmmaker and photographer Sokhi Wagner for a limited edition publication by Spuyten Duyvil Press. Her poetry collection THE SECRET OF WHITE will be released in 2007, also by Spuyten Duyvil. She lives in Berkeley, California with her husband and son.

Product Details

• Paperback: 70 pages
• Publisher: Winnow Press; 1st edition (December 1, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0976472651
• ISBN-13: 978-0976472650
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #8,438,620 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars perception and language and consciousness, March 21, 2007

By 

Ms. Nona M. Caspers (San Francisco) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Flying in Water (Paperback)

The long poem Flying in Water is a delightful read. Edward Smallfield says in his high praise on the back of the book the following: "Here, there is no firm line of demarcation between language and consciousness or between either and the facts of life that elude both." Language in Flying in Water is used to track perception as it shifts and eludes--we are brought into seeing itself and we are brought into an interior life without seeing--what we perceive when direct image is cancelled out: "She closes her eyes sensing how she is contained/A mollusk in a too small shell" There is a sense of exploration with this character "she"--a universal voyage that is deeply satisfying. While reading the poems--prose poems really--one can feel one's own tenuous presence -- one's own body and mind moving through the minutes. How can looking so closely and constructing existance with language feel so rich and reassuring? We are all flying in water when it comes to language and capturing consciousness, capturing uncapturable reality. This book rather than trying to capture it, invites its ever shifting terraine. So rich, so well written!