Employing sonnets and sestinas as well as open forms, Measured Extravagance lyrically documents the messiness of grief and explores the complexity of devotion. Peg Duthie celebrates the conflicting demands of journeys as she travels from a Nashville recording studio to a congested street in Prague to the Wall in the Old City of Jerusalem, and introduces us to sharpshooters, scientists, musicians, bakers, the dead and those living on the edges of reality as they romp past boundaries, rage at expectations, and tangle with skepticism and belief. Read this book—and throw jump shots with Shakespeare, play duets with Heisenberg, and find out what relish trays and rifles really have in common.
Reviews
"Peg Duthie has put together a thoroughly extravagant collection of poems. The reader journeys through locations of the mind as well as those of the earth; I was never quite sure what I’d get as I turned the page, but I was always surprised. As the speaker says in the poem 'Extravagance'—'Such a feast.'"
— Christine Klocek-Lim, “Three Poetry Reviews for National Poetry Month,” November Sky Poetry, 28 April 2012.
"The title appears to be an oxymoron. How can something measured be extravagant? We can ask that question of poetry itself. Taking it to the bard as we shoot hoops, we might ask how it’s possible to seize something as tight and as structured as a sonnet and stuff it full to bursting. The answer… well, the whole book is an answer to that question."
— David Allan Barker, “Review: Measured Extravagance, by Peg Duthie,” Nouspique, 20 April 2012.
"I love this. I reread it already. I will reread it again."
— Marissa Lingen, “Measured Extravagance, by Peg Duthie,” Barnstorming on an Invisible Segway, 21 March 2012.
Reviews
"Peg Duthie has put together a thoroughly extravagant collection of poems. The reader journeys through locations of the mind as well as those of the earth; I was never quite sure what I’d get as I turned the page, but I was always surprised. As the speaker says in the poem 'Extravagance'—'Such a feast.'"
— Christine Klocek-Lim, “Three Poetry Reviews for National Poetry Month,” November Sky Poetry, 28 April 2012.
"The title appears to be an oxymoron. How can something measured be extravagant? We can ask that question of poetry itself. Taking it to the bard as we shoot hoops, we might ask how it’s possible to seize something as tight and as structured as a sonnet and stuff it full to bursting. The answer… well, the whole book is an answer to that question."
— David Allan Barker, “Review: Measured Extravagance, by Peg Duthie,” Nouspique, 20 April 2012.
"I love this. I reread it already. I will reread it again."
— Marissa Lingen, “Measured Extravagance, by Peg Duthie,” Barnstorming on an Invisible Segway, 21 March 2012.
