Miss America [Paperback]

Catherine Wagner (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1, 2001

"The poems of Catherine Wagner are instantly sacramental, immediately mysterious. Showing songlines to Spicer's profanity and to Zukofsky's purest register, they move through musics entirely their own. There, MISS AMERICA finds a world wide-open but unharmed. There, Wagner proves the wisdom of divided hearts. She is a mage and a marvel. I believe she is our best."
--Donald Russell

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In serial sets of Fractional Anthems and Magazine Poems, Wagner lights out for the territory of layered lexical eroticism pioneered by Lee Ann Brown. Yet she infuses her lines with a sardonic and foreboding edge, as in the second of Two Poems for Entertainment Weekly: Friendly and forsaken/ Is it hotter to wear a bra/ Or let my boobs stck to my chest/ Melanin, melatonin, metonym, melanoma. For the pimply and shiny generation ten or so years younger than Deborah Garrison is Working Girl, this book, one of the first from Fence magazine is new publishing arm, will strike definitive chords.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Review

"Emerson, calling for a true American poet, said that language is a fossil record of poetry: every word was once a poem. If poetry is, therefore, some kind of life-animal, then Catherine Wagner's Miss America is a glorious beast. Her first book is cocksure and wailing, stinky, rude, and actually happening. Miss America is not self-thrilled by its (her?) own intentions and inventions, but running fast ahead of them. We have here the strangely visceral truths that fall from children's mistranslations, something undeniable slipped from the angry, drunk, or otherwise possessed. Wagner warns us of herself (and her propensity to invent words) right from the start. The opening poem of the book begins: 'nigh said I made that up to / get some sweeteye from you all / some glance at me even if my / story is boring and a lie / . . . and who fuckin cares they don't / want me to be likem and borem / everybody dead. / Since I been here SCARED / and my natural EBULLISHNESS / held back by a warning finger. / Mo lady! Poop it out!' ... ...Anyone who thinks this is babytalk should remember how we react when encountering a talking baby: fascinated and mesmerized. The further these nascent communications seem to be from 'language,' the closer they feel to an emotional core. Wagner's tongues, however, are never an escape from meaning. As she tells us in 'Poem for Poets & Writers,' 'I like understanding so much I want it to happen over and over.' Wagner is not just playing with the readymade materials of poetry, she is working from inner fiat: 'Not here with joy but under pressure / from my superego' ('A Poem for Art in America,' one of her 'Magazine Poems'). Wagner dives more into the skin than the conscious mind to find her way. These poems are raw, pre-lapsarian in their instinctual connections (not to mention their naked and naughty refusal of sin); they feel more than our language usually allows us."--Rob Strong , Provincetown Arts Magazine

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 68 pages
• Publisher: Fence Books; 1st edition (November 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0966332474
• ISBN-13: 978-0966332476
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 6 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,581,356 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Must Read, February 14, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Miss America (Paperback)

Wagner's poems are not for the common mind. Jack Spicer meets Anatole France and bomb's away. You've got to read these wild poems.

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Debut, July 15, 2002

By 

Robert B Strong (Denver, CO United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Miss America (Paperback)

CATHERINE WAGNER's work attacks from a primordial angle. Emerson, calling for a true American poet, said that language is a fossil record of poetry: every word was once a poem. If poetry is, therefore, some kind of life-animal, then Catherine Wagner's Miss America is a glorious beast.

Her first book is cocksure and wailing, stinky, rude, and actually happening. Miss America is not self-thrilled by its (her?) own intentions and inventions, but running fast ahead of them. We have here the strangely visceral truths that fall from children's mistranslations, something undeniable slipped from the angry, drunk, or otherwise possessed. Wagner warns us of herself (and her propensity to invent words) right from the start. The opening poem of the book begins: "nigh said I made that up to / get some sweeteye from you all / some glance at me even if my / story is boring and a lie / . . . and who...cares they don't / want me to be likem and borem / everybody dead. / Since I been here SCARED / and my natural EBULLISHNESS / held back by a warning finger. / Mo lady! Poop it out!"

Anyone who thinks this is babytalk should remember how we react when encountering a talking baby: fascinated and mesmerized. The further these nascent communications seem to be from "language," the closer they feel to an emotional core. Wagner's tongues, however, are never an escape from meaning. As she tell us in "Poem for Poets & Writers," "I like understanding so much I want it to happen over and over." Wagner is not just playing with the readymade materials of poetry, she is working from inner fiat: "Not here with joy but under pressure / from my superego" ("A Poem for Art in America," one of her "Magazine Poems").

On the contrary, this book does include joy (much of it, um, very natural). "I Am Darling You" begins "let me king around / you king all over, mighty" and continues, building gut-felt affection with mere words: "slavish all over me, please. // Darned mighty, sleeping, / oyster eyes. // Feel little. Little my head to sleep. // I suffer you, you basic." The final line of this poem, if read alone, would remain the merely prosaic: "He made enough for me to take to lunch." But the pressurized accumulations of off-phrased adoration force something miraculous into this final sentence. By the time the reader reaches the last line, each of its words tremor with the bursting love that speaks it. We suddenly experience the no-difference between correct and incorrect when human feeling overwhelms language.

Wagner's yawps run from the clever/cultural ("If you are Gwyneth / You are never toenails on my rug / Abounding") to the crisis/existential. But, as we see in "Café Rouge," even the cerebrum's old complaints about its fetid meat-vehicle are freshly horrifying to Wagner's mind:

Shoulderblades frayed the cloth I'm made of
Sewn up my neck round speaking hole
and ragged with snot
pale salmon concealer sodden
I pick and pick the seam all day
does I really think anything covers me up
this my swan is it

Wagner dives more into the skin than the conscious mind to find her way. These poems are raw, pre-lapsarian in their instinctual connections (not to mention their naked and naughty refusal of sin); they feel more than our language usually allows us.

[note: a version of this review appears in Provincetown Arts magazine 2002]

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Don't miss Miss America, March 7, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Miss America (Paperback)

A quite original collection of contemporary lyric exercises that marry O'Hara and Catullus with Spicer and Notley. The poems track the construction of a lyric identity, showing the self as an amalgam of experiences and cultural influences. These cultural influences range from Wittgenstein to Sports Illustrated and the experiences range from waiting tables to waiting for a lover.This unique inclusivity reminds us what poetry and the world might contain.