Tackle Box (Anhinga Prize for Poetry Series) [Paperback]

Patti White (Author)

Book Description

Series: Anhinga Prize for Poetry Series | Publication Date: September 1, 2002

Poetry. Patti White was a probation officer in Colorado before turning to academic life. She now teaches American literature at Ball State University and is the author of Gatsby's Party: the System and the List in Contemporary Literature. "These poems offer a unique perception of the world, almost primal in their energy and power, but also couched in the sophistication of global myth and literature. Patti White's voice is authoritative, witty, and persuasive. She can take the most trivial subject and give it substance through her imaginative vision. Like a shaman, she offers reverence for life and the living, but this is no soft-focus new age shaman afraid to touch blood or penetrate mysteries. To read these poems is to be invigorated, to feel the possibility of moving outside the confines of one's own narrow personal life"--Diane Wakoski.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Every other book of poems wins a prize, or so it seems. Still, some really are winners: White's vivid, plain-language poems, for instance, which won their publisher's poetry prize. White is a surrealist who dreams of loving "The Tin Man," not to shock us but to explain in terms of human longing precisely why: "I like a man sculpted, welded, riveted / by desire." She is a redemptive farceur who in "Tackle Box" envisions a sea fisher's ashes, stolen from her grieving husband when mistaken for drugs, transforming the lives of stockbrokers, "teenagers driving BMWs," and "oddly inept men" who have suddenly gone fishin'. She ponders sad, monstrous mysteries: the woman who, in a final fit of the fear of math, kills children, pets, and herself; the likeness of "Road Kill" to the prostitutes that "someone is killing . . . / on Interstate 70"; the betrayal of confidence of "The Children's Crusade," whether in 1212, in Hamelin, or "late at night in Manhattan." White's striking stuff, populist in impulse, deserves a broad readership. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

From the Inside Flap

These poems offer a unique perception of the world, almost primal in their energy and power but, also couched in the sophistication of global myth and literature. Patti White’s voice is authoritative, witty, and persuasive. She can take the most trivial subject and give it substance through her imaginative vision. Like a shaman, she offers reverence for life and the living, but this is no soft-focus new age shaman afraid to touch blood or penetrate mysteries. To read these poems is to be invigorated, to feel the possibility of moving outside the confines of one’s own narrow personal life. But dynamic vision is not all White offers. Her language is radiant, intensely lyrical at times, in spite of its driving narrative force. Perhaps that is why they seem to be the poems of some Wonder Woman or High Priestess, or the kind of woman we would all be honored to know.
— Diane Wakoski
Judge, 2001 Anhinga Prize for Poetry

These poems are the best lures I’ve picked up in a long time. No — they’ve picked me up. Patti White can talk tough, but be oh so embraceable.
— Gary Gildner

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 80 pages
• Publisher: Anhinga Press (September 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0938078712
• ISBN-13: 978-0938078715
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,911,607 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Zombies and Cremation Cocaine More Touching than You'd Think, November 18, 2009

By 

Isabela Morales (Tuscaloosa, AL) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Tackle Box (Anhinga Prize for Poetry Series) (Paperback)

Patti White's use of dream sequences as inspiration for her poetry seems to me a major reason why the words seem to take on an almost mystical quality; while zombies hungry for love or teenagers mistaking cremated remains for drugs seem like completely bizarre ideas, foreign and removed from actual daily life, White's style turns the scenes into moving, poignant moments. And honestly, that's how many of our dreams are- completely illogical, but influential on a basic emotional level. In this way, "Tackle Box" becomes about the heart-breaking transmission of love to unrelated persons, not necessarily about the hilarious "bone cocaine." This is a perfect reflection of what Patti White called "the tension between surface and depth."

Most impressive to me was the adaptation of the poem "Tackle Box" into a short film (no--bloody epics are not the only poems to hit the screen). The cinematography was absolutely beautiful, and the music imparted some of the mystical feel of the poem. While it seemed strange at first that the movie utilized no spoken words, I quickly began to appreciate the effect. In poetry, words are used to create a vivid image, and so the words can easily be expendable in a strictly visual medium.

5.0 out of 5 stars A poetic gem!, April 26, 2003

By 

floy work (Charleston, SC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Tackle Box (Anhinga Prize for Poetry Series) (Paperback)

If you love language and poetry, you will love Patti Smith's work. This gem cuts to the quick. Smith's work is alive with humor, insight and honesty. What a gem! Don't hestitate. Order it now. Savor it always. She's amazing.

5.0 out of 5 stars If you care about poetry . . ., January 14, 2003

By 

lit prof (New York City, New York USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Tackle Box (Anhinga Prize for Poetry Series) (Paperback)

If there's a better poet writing in English than Patti White, I don't know who he or she is. These poems range in subject matter from classical mythology (Demeter, Circe) to rustic trivia (a dog's heartworm, a rain crow's nest) and are animated by a relentless sense of wonder; White pursues psychic connections that have no right to make sense yet somehow do--between a business school and an order of nuns, between lost cats and beat poets. The poem "Man 'O War Motel" is worth the price of the book by itself, a litany of violent death and grotesque loss that wanders into a meditation on Nabokov's Lolita. It is a heartbreaking, unforgettable work. "The Love Zombies" is almost as good, as is "The Tin Man." To paraphrase White, these are poems "that last." Read them for yourself if you care about poetry.