My Favorite Apocalypse [Paperback]

Catie Rosemurgy (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1, 2001

A lively, fresh, and outspoken debut, My Favorite Apocalyse reveals the poetical influence of W.B. Yeats as well as that of Mick Jagger. "Everything in my life led up / to my inappropriate laughter," Rosemurgy writes. With a deep sense of irony and sharp-edged wit, she shows readers why the cruelties of relationships, inevitable bad luck, and soul-searching rock-n-roll deserve both cynicism and reverence.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In tumbling, delicate metaphors "She's threatened with becoming// a rimed then a shattered rose/ ... The tiny, spiked,/ mathematically omniscient angels/ will carry her off/ the way a lake carries off/ a sheet of ice" Rosemurgy renders the human penchant for splaying our internal workings across the outside world. A dispersed series of he-said/she-said pairs wherein a woman has moved into a tent behind her and her boyfriend's house shapes this lyric, relationship-oriented collection. (June)
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"Rosemurgy is best when she speaks outright. 'Show don't tell,' goes the old mandate, but Rosemurgy understands the power of telling directly . . . A clear, authentic, compelling voice."—Billy Collins

"Anyone fearful of prodigious imagination should get out of the way of My Favorite Apocalypse fast . . . [Rosemurgy] is bluesy, Plathy, magnificently unabashed, yet possessed of real gifts for rhapsody and tenderness."—Rodney Jones

"My Favorite Apocalypse is full of wonders. It has a confiding, urgent, lit-up tone."—Amy Gerstler

"My Favorite Apocalypse is seductive: I couldn’t stop reading such luscious, insouciant work."—Alice Fulton

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 72 pages
• Publisher: Graywolf Press; 1 edition (July 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 155597323X
• ISBN-13: 978-1555973230
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,200,052 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars My Favorite Poet, June 18, 2001

By 

"r_t_newman" (St.Louis, MO) - See all my reviews

This review is from: My Favorite Apocalypse (Paperback)

Catie Rosemurgy is now one of my favorite poets. She says the things I wouldn't dare say in a way I wouldn't have dreamed. Her subjects range from Mick Jagger and Steve Earle to Fairy Tales and one-night-stands. One subject comes up again and again throughout the book: boys, a subject that really allows her get to the heart of things. Every poem in My Favorite Apocolypse (and this is a rarity) is sad, funny, beautiful, true, and so very, very good. She is imaginative without being pretentious, honest without being self-indulgent, personal without being private. Catie Rosemurgy writes great, mouth-watering lines that aren't flowery, though we should all send her flowers after this remarkable debut. Roses, of course.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Sassy!, August 6, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: My Favorite Apocalypse (Paperback)

A daring debut. I want to keep hearing what this woman has to tell me. Enjoyed all the poems, but my favorites were "The Angel and the River Water," "To My Lover on Returning to His Wife and Then Finding Another Lover," and "Blow Your House Down." Rock on, Catie Rosemurgy!

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Watch Out For This One, May 27, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: My Favorite Apocalypse (Paperback)

Catie Rosemurgy's first book of poetry pulses with an internal light. You can see it in everything, from Jumping Jack Flash in the epigraph, to titles like "1, 2, 3 . . . I'm Perfect Starting Now," to the smallest bits of lines... "The glow in my bones/ is out tonight." What this book shows of life borders on the surreal, and yet the reader comes away knowing exactly what Rosemurgy means. It is a book filled with light and color and the shattering that precedes falling back into what we are. Read it. Love it. Share it with friends. This girl glitters - and she'll be back with more to say.