One Hidden Stuff (Penguin Poets) [Mass Market Paperback]

Barbara Ras (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 26, 2006

Using long-lined, imaginative leaps to connect the everyday with the miraculous, the intimate with the visionary, Barbara Ras's poems surge across the page like waves crashing on a beach. She crafts the forty-one new poems in this collection with a zany and spacious cunning that reaches from family to community, from what's cherished to what's lost, from culture to nature.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Beginning with a full moon and ending with "the petals/ of where we belong," this second collection takes on the clichés and mysteries of daily life—moving, loss, dogs, happiness—in hopes of finding what underlies them. Ras, whose debut, Bite Every Sorrow (1998), won the Whitman and Kate Tufts Discovery Awards, is unafraid of big subjects and big feelings, approaching them mostly in a ragged, long-lined free verse that gathers steam as it moves down the page. Many of the small pleasures of these poems speed by like scenery in a train window. A speaker finds a seashell "the size of a large speck" and wonders about its ocean sound "and what kind of ear it would take to hear it." But the "small beauties" have little chance against larger historical forces, like a U.S. military campaign called "Operation Menu"; two cloud-gazing friends come across "the kind of billowings that could only be called atomic." Politics and the pain of familial relationships are often fused, as when a mother's thoughts about her daughter are juxtaposed with a front-page photo of a mother and daughter fleeing violence in Chechnya. While unlikely to turn many heads, this is an entertaining and at times very moving sophomore effort, which pays attention to life's small pleasures and subtle difficulties. (Oct.)
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From Booklist

*Starred Review* In Ras' award-winning debut, Bite Every Sorrow (1998), the ocean's busy edge was the key locus. In her second collection, desert scenes take precedence, and as attuned as Ras is to the dynamism of earth, air, and water, fire is the ruling element here. A homeless man hurls lit matches at passersby; "thin clouds turn into sleek flames," fevers rage, and fires at an oasis "could whirl you clear into the afterlife." Fire is wild and obliterating; fire is also warming, illuminating, sustaining. The book's title is from Emerson--"Everything is made of one hidden stuff"--and Ras detects this mysterious force at work everywhere she looks, from the transubstantiation that water and air so readily perform to dogs barking out their heart's desires on warm nights to the cravings and crimes of humankind. Passionate, frank, and witty, Ras reports on conflagrations personal and archetypal in a warming world perpetually in love and at war. Her bittersweet, immediate, and wise lyrics are long-lined and punctuated with glissandos and unexpected leaps. Tough-minded, funny, and sensuous, Ras' vital poems remind us of all that we're given on this planet and how recklessly we devour it. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Mass Market Paperback: 96 pages
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics); 1ST edition (September 26, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0143037854
• ISBN-13: 978-0143037859
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #522,227 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One Hidden Stuff, June 7, 2009

By 

Dallas Fawson (Salt Lake City, Utah) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: One Hidden Stuff (Penguin Poets) (Mass Market Paperback)

Barbara Ras is one of my favorite poets. She writes in long, elegant sentences, and finds beauty in everything without being cliched or pretentious.
Ras's poetry is miles away from the short sentenced, right to the point poetry of Neruda and other greats: I really can't think of another poet to compare her to.
Ras certainly isn't a poet that you could read even if you weren't a fan of poetry, but for lovers of poetry she's certainly something that must be looked into. She makes relevant references to the world, going from politics to nature to sex, and there isn't a bad one in the bunch. My recommendation is to read the poems it will let you sample and decide for yourself what you think.

5.0 out of 5 stars Powerful Writing, October 16, 2009

By 

DataDr. (MN) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: One Hidden Stuff (Penguin Poets) (Mass Market Paperback)

This is deeply rooted writing that must come from experience. Reminds me in a way that I can't explain of Annie Dillard. Don't go looking the the happy go lucky here. This is serious writing that lays bear both the pains and joys of life and points, perhaps, in the hard direction that you can't have one without the other.