The Rape Poems [Paperback]

Frances Driscoll (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1997

Poetry. Frances Driscoll's RAPE POEMS sink into the horror and beauty of memory without attention to pretense. The poems refuse to relent from the poet's sense of unshakable reality and do not belabor themselves with the trivialities of a misunderstanding world. Described as a "compelling...rare" collection, THE RAPE POEMS is personal reportage in common language with alarmingly precise composition and artistry. "Harrowing and obsessively skeptical, tender and private and hugely humane, these unsettling poems arrive like dispatches from the very source of our wounds" --Ralph Angel.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Frances Driscoll's The Rape Poems is a deeply disturbing, compelling and somehow beautifully rendered sequence of poems, in which a terrible wounding has been transformed by long meditation, careful attention to detail, and superb artistry. Though hers is a landscape one would think would be strewn with the landmines of sentimentality and self-pity, there is never a false step here as she guides us through her nightmare. Of how many books of poetry can one truly say, 'I could not put this book down until I'd read it through to the end'? This is one of those rare books." -- Paul Mariani

"It is impossible to praise this book too much-its power, maturity, sorrow, and fierce resistance. This book should be required reading in America." -- Lynn Emanuel

"Not since the Beats has reportage been employed without the slightest pretension. Harrowing and obsessively skeptical, tender and private and hugely humane, these unsettling poems arrive like dispatches from the very source of our wounds." -- Ralph Angel

"Powerful. Sad. Touching. Sad. Inspiring. Sad. What a gift she has." -- Nikki Giovanni

"These are stunning poems, in every sense of the word. Tracing the circuitous and torturous paths of memory, Frances Driscoll fearlessly looks back on, and into, rape. Her triumph is that she refuses to trivialize through a mode of confessionalism. Instead, these are poems that are lush with a common, familiar, evocative language that cuts through the surface detritus of our lives, the 'pastel drugs' of therapy, the police reports, the 'cheap filler' of the national wire. What she ultimately reveals are the beauty and terror of what she hesitantly calls 'real life.' These are poems of great courage. And if these are poems of terror, they are also poems of beauty, as Frances Driscoll takes us to a place finally colored by the 'lemon-green of very young leaves.'" -- Gillian Conoley

Aberrational Manners
After A Time Consuming Dental Procedure
All Of This Happens In A Warm Coastal Climate
And I Put Away
Automatic Icemaker
Baskets
Bread, Water
But Remember
Certain Days, Certain Nights
The Color Of The Rug
Color Study
Common Expression
Dear Susan
Difficult Word
Donor Mentality
Dreams Of Girls
Entertaining Ray
Final Words
First Recital
Hard Evidence
Here, Among Old Roses
Incomplete Examination
Island Of The Raped Women
Man, Woman
Market Research
Multiple Choice
Outrageous Behavior
Page 134
Parochial Air
Perversion
The Plague
Procedural Similarity
Ray's Sentence
Reading Material
Real Life
Some Lucky Girls
Spotting Ray
That She May
This Will Happen
Unpurchased Batteries
Vocabulary Words
What Backlash
Wild Ribbons
-- Table of Poems from Poem Finder®

From the Publisher

"In this psychologically searing collection of poems, Frances Driscoll is wise, clear-eyed, and unrelenting. As her readers, we're asked to attempt a reckoning with an act and experience of violence so intimate it rips the fabric of an entire life. The poet asks not only if one can ever triumph over the pain and psychic debris of such an event, but also if this isn't perhaps, what it can truly mean-the terror, the misappraisals of family and friends-to be a woman in America today.."

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Product Details

• Paperback: 88 pages
• Publisher: Pleasure Boat Studio; 1st edition (June 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0965141314
• ISBN-13: 978-0965141314
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #392,695 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #97 in Books > Health, Fitness & Dieting > Mental Health > Abuse & Self Defense > Rape

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Moving, Artful,and very poetic, July 18, 2000

By 

Sarah Rothberger - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Rape Poems (Paperback)

As a poet who has experienced her own traumas, I turned to this book to see how Driscoll would depict hers. I found the experience entirely moving. This poet's verse is captivating. Reading the poems, I felt like I was in a trance. Her words kept repeating in my head afterwords. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who has experienced a trauma like rape, because Frances Driscoll has the words that are so difficult for some to find. I would recommend this book to any poet who deals with real subjects. This is a truly amazing work of art and power.

5.0 out of 5 stars Powerful poems, July 21, 2011

By 

Donnatella - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Rape Poems (Paperback)

These poems by Frances Driscoll form an epic story of survival. It takes the simple Madison Avenue sttory of what heroism looks like and delves into what it means to survive by honestly depicting what it TAKES to survive rape, and how, in doing so, one gains a lot but also has lost a lot. A courageous self-examination.

5.0 out of 5 stars This is a book in images, March 7, 2010

By 

Suze Baron (Brooklyn, NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Rape Poems (Paperback)

Once I started the book, I couldn't put it down. Situations are detailed, specific, and the discomfort or uneasiness felt:

"The physician specifically trained for such occasions, examines me naked late the next afternoon, inch by careful inch, slowly touching me slowly everywhere slowly.... He remarks upon raw skin, bruises. Keeps finding bruise after bruise. I can not connect bruises with what happened and I can not talk anymore....I have already talked with the center director, the policewoman, the center director, the psychologist, the center director. I can not talk anymore. Could I describe the rape for him, he says...."

Throughout the book, Frances Driscoll made sure that the reader understands what happens to a woman who experiences rape; she couldn't have been more effective.

I ordered my book, and it came within a few days, and it arrived in good shape.

Suze Baron