Customer Reviews

The Park of Upside-Down Chairs

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In this, her brilliant debut collection, Alexandra van de Kamp argues that to love is to "let things fall through us," to keep a steadfast dedication to the physical world with all its beauty and pain. I can think of no better proof of love than these poems, and this poet's astonishing genius for metaphor, in which, as we read, our precious world--its clouds and lemons, breasts and saints, spoons and smoke and abandoned chairs--falls through us, changing, as it falls, into aspects of ourselves. This is the work of a magician; in other words, the work of a true poet. - Janet Kaplan

"Can we discover ourselves and the meaning of our lives in forgotten objects in this `thick, viscous world'? Yes, Alexandra van de Kamp says in her lovely first full-length book. The details define us, `there are days when the objects/ we think love us, tell us what we really are.' Or we find ourselves juxtaposed against details like lemons, a fountain, mailboxes, a fan, rugs, photographs, and, quite often, paintings. All inform us about our true selves and how we fit into this world. This delightful book points out the possibilities and imagines the myriad of lives that could have been ours. It's a book that makes us reflect on what our better selves have left behind. And it's Alexandra who finds them."--Laurie Blauner, author of Wrong and Infinite Kindness

[from the rear cover of _The Park of Upside-Down Chairs_]

Alexandra van de Kamp's poetry takes the ordinary and translates it to the extraordinary - from her descriptions of a rainy day to her gorgeous interpretation of life in Juxtapositions...her sentences flow magically and her imagery is captivating.

There lies something more vivid to it all if you just look deeper. "The Park of Upside-Down Chairs" is a collection of poetry from Alexandra van de Kamp as she gives readers her vision of the world, which is a lot more detailed than many people take it to be. "The Park of Upside-Down Chairs" is a fascinating read, very much recommended. "Sleep": Dark comma of a life. Road we become when we lie down./The body a luminous plate the night lays itself upon. Our/mind the witch's hut, where all worry burns, our fears/kindled in that phosphorous wound. Just think: no matter/what we do under the bright umbrellas of sun, each night,/darkness captures us, robes us in its velvety caves, blurs us/with the furniture and the cats, who trust the dark, lean into/its many words. We are children: tiring so easily, needing/to be held nightly by a hand pouring its shadow down/the sky. Plants at dusk twitter like birds, sing between/two alien worlds.

Alexandra van de Kamp is world class all the way. This is a GREAT book!

I have known Alexandra since she was twelve years old, she has always know that she wanted to be a writer and has pursued that goal with her studies under John Barth at Johns Hopkins and then to her graduate degree at the University of Washington. It gives me great pleasure to have watched her progress, read her work as it evolved and matured, attended her poetry readings, and celebrate with her this most particular honor. It is a truly wonderful book, made all the more rich and meaningful by our long and loving relationship.
Well done Alexandra!