Marriage: A Sentence (Poets, Penguin) [Mass Market Paperback]

Anne Waldman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 2000 | Age Level: 1 and up | Series: Poets, Penguin

In her latest collection of poems, internationally renowned poet Anne Waldman examines our most misunderstood institution-marriage.

Anne Waldman's new collection is a set of high-spirited poetic meditations on the delights and pitfalls of marriage in all its guises--traditional marriages, same sex marriages, the nuclear couple in the contemporary context. Marriage: A Sentence weaves together folklore, autobiographical detail, a meditation on the first five days of the marriage of famed modernist dancer Nijinsky, memory, dream, politics, and the play between opposites and dualities. The work is based on the traditional form of the "haibun," in which a prose-like poem is coupled with a condensed lyric poem of the same theme. The overall drive in this innovative work is an impulse to restore and maintain the spiritual life of marriage in all its diverse manifestations. Lyrical and "berserk," this is Waldman's most exciting, energetic, and accessible work yet.

"Combination of oracle, siren and den mother, Waldman's poetry is a compendium of dreams, journal entries, letters, chants and overheard conversations, it deploys everything from sonnets to chunks of Buddhist philosophy seized as pure truth."-- Ken Tucker, The New York Times Book Review

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In a book-length series of haibun, a Japanese form in which prose pieces are juxtaposed with verse responses, Waldman (Fast Speaking Woman; The Beat Book; etc.) energetically invokes and explodes a plethora of marriage-related myths, histories and traditions. The Native American Berdache, the biblical Lilith, the Ngerorod kidnap-wedding of the Balinese and even Vaslav Nijinsky's exploits stand shoulder to shoulder with Waldman's own, often hilarious, marital experiences in '60s New York: "The father-in-law disappears & goes on a bender invoking Ho Chi Minh long may he win he sobs, he fought an honorable war." The haibun form works excellently for Waldman, setting up a call-and-response rhythm via the alternating contrasts of prose and verse, and through stretched-to-the-breaking-point repetitions. At times the fierceness of the prose sections-"how many billions a planet can hold as the residue on the sleeve lasts chanting I do I do I do I do I do I do I do I do I do I do I do I do I do I do do I & I do lasts & I do not last I am impermanent in the name of Buddha"--overpower the more ethereal and meditative verse sections: the verse response to the vivacious prose-poem "stereo"unsuccessfully invokes the Pygmalion and Galatea myth with too-flat lines like "ornamental/ presence/ sculpted// ivory/ or virgin flesh." But at their best, the verse responses offer mythological depths and elegant counterpoints to the prose fireworks. This collection is a valuable and compelling companion to Waldman's epic Iovis books, which delved into male personae. Its innovative use of a "married" form--two forms responding continually to each other--makes poetry that dynamically and provocatively questions a still-evolving institution.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

50-string Lute
Abate The Clause
Act Of Violence
Adultery
Alien Kinship Says I Was The Trobriand Islander
Allegorical Dream
Alone In Her Sprint Of Him
Anaclastic
Animal'd With Job To Do
Aries Rising
Astrology A Middle Name
Auguries
Berdache
Blessing
Burning Ghat
By Candle's Light A Bedouin
Charivari/syntagma
China
Climbs A Tower As In A Tale
Coda A Code
Common Law
Common Tune
Covet
Coyote Almost Takes A Wife
Cure
Dark O' Night
Dies Sanguinis
Divertere
Divine Jealousy
Doppelganger Flame
Dowry
Dram Three Times Strange
Duo
Elapidation
Even Keel
Expedition To A Lake
Fertile House
Flame Or Flaming
Future Duty
Gamete
Gender Game
Gestational
Glass Hymen Rite
God's Hidden Purpose
Her Sure Joy
Herman & Ho
Heuristically Speaking
Hex
Hieros Gamos
Ius Primae Noctis
Kaligat
Kinship's Touch Away
Le Nozze, A Romp
Lineage
Mail-order Groom
Male Gaze Male
The Marriage Of William Blake
Men Ought To Love Men/(and Do)
Metabolic
Moon-in-hand
More Mores
Mother Grace
Murderous Man & Wife Things
Nijinsky
Nipple That Does Not Ask A Sigh
Nouns Of The House
On A Knee
Orphan
Outed For Eternity
Outside Cyberspace
Pillar Of Fire
Predatory
Rhumba
Rite
Science Annals
Seclusion, Concealment & Veiling
Selves The Shelf Of Ballads Made From
Sexual Motion
Shark People
Shopping Spree
Silverhands
Sleeve Of Care
Solipsistic, Anatomical
Spel
Stereo
Street Of Human Bodies
Suchlike
Tell A Story About A Threshold Here
Thin-skinned
Thy Lip
Wanderlust
War Bride
Wax Girl
Wilt
Wine Cup Of Night Play
Worker Song
Zoo
-- Table of Poems from Poem Finder®

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 1 and up
  
• Mass Market Paperback: 96 pages
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics); First Edition edition (May 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140589228
• ISBN-13: 978-0140589221
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.7 ounces
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,409,126 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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