Winner of the 2004 Barnard Women Poets Prize, judged by Jorie Graham, this collection explores loss and regeneration.
Whether searching for the beloved or translating dreams and memory into bearable parables, the speakers of Tessa Rumsey's poems cannot escape their endless longing. Will this uncontainable desire lead to the possession of the other, or to the dissolution of the self? Such are the book's ethical, cultural, and spiritual imperatives.
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A daring collection that sweeps the reader through its moments of inspiration to the last page. -- Wisconsin Bookwatch
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
About the Author
Tessa Rumsey's Assembling the Shepherd won the 1998 Contemporary Poetry Series Competition. She lives in San Francisco.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Another fine collection from Rumsey.,
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This review is from: The Return Message: Poems (Paperback)
Tessa Rumsey, The Return Message (W. W. Norton, 2005)Wow. What an odd, intriguing little book this is. Wholly different from Assembling the Shepherd, Rumsey's excellent first book, but without any decline in quality. Rumsey plays with punctuation here in a way that at first seems fast and loose, but once you glom onto what she's doing, it has its moments of brilliance. The book is also odd structurally, with a senryu (and I use the term loosely) on the left-hand page facing a poem on the right, each time with the same name. There is an obsession with wisteria, about which I know nothing other than that it's a popular incense scent (and wikipedia is being singularly unhelpful on this point). Beyond all this, though, there is the writing itself. The writing is always where a written work should live or die. And what really sold me was "Notes on Coinage," which I started reading and realized it was one of those poems that, when I encounter it, I want to jump up and read to strangers passing me on the street: "We begin to "think" the city into being; there is nothing to think; we wander hopelessly into believing. The Beloved is wallpaper; the room in which you spend the night is defined by unbearable architecture. Like an eclipse, a heartbeat disappears from its chest when only when overwhelmed by a sound more sumptuous. Than itself; this disparity points languidly to the genesis of wealth; and thus I came to be a pauper. Inside your highly reflective city;..." Two for two from Ms. Rumsey. Looking forward to collection number three. *** ½
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An anthology of original poetry written with an eye toward 21st-century surrealism and freedom from constraints,
By Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Return Message: Poems (Hardcover)
2004 Barnard Women Poets Prize winner Tessa Rumsey presents The Return Message: Poems, an anthology of original poetry written with an eye toward 21st-century surrealism and freedom from constraints. Individual poems are brief, and often contemplate similarly fleeting targets such as dreams, moments of emotion, or the all too transitory nature of life. A daring collection that sweeps the reader through its moments of inspiration to the last page. Bridal: Last flower of spring, / Unable to release itself and attain perfection. / Gorgeous pale brocade, arms reaching earthward!
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
lush and meditative,
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This review is from: The Return Message: Poems (Hardcover)
This is the kind of book you stay at home for. The writing is poised and controlled but the poet allows the reader into the world of her poems effortlessly. I recommend this highly and without reservation.
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