That Kind of Danger (Barnard New Women Poets Series) [Paperback]

Donna Masini (Author)

Book Description

Series: Barnard New Women Poets Series | Publication Date: April 30, 1994

Winner of the 1993 Barnard New Women Poets Prize.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Masini is a poet of passion whose particularly American voice can be heard in the most unlikely of poetic settings. In this, her first book, she has chosen unlyrical urban spaces--basements, parking lots, a bandshell by a river--and transformed these landscapes with generosity and energy. Subterranean forces take part in the play of her imagery, and the writer controls their resonance. In "What Drives Her," for instance, a poem about a woman dancing, the process of memory is described in terms of surfacing: "Her father dances inside her, / a kind of dim, gritty music. / And her heart, her insistent heart, / floats up panting /as though shaken up / from a buried place." To Masini's credit, a reader may feel that some of the surfacing going on in these poems is still happening, that the poems are the byproducts of the process, or even the process itself. Her gaze is steady, whether looking at horror or beauty ("we learn to live in a torn place"); when evoking a place or a moment, she effectively mixes the mundane with the sublime, as in "Wheel of Fortune" (alluding both to the TV game show and to the Tarot's archetypal wheel of fortune). The choices she makes in her poems lead to brave and honest writing, even if formal considerations are sometimes sacrificed on the confessional altar.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Born and raised in New York's "outerboroughs," Masini vividly expresses her love of her native city in passionate, tough poems that recall the tonsile muscularity of Whitman, another indefatigable walker of the city's streets: "I knew brick and concrete, glass and lights,/ the diamond sidewalks that burned in the summers,/ the cement walk . . . slate blocks/ thrust up by the movement of trees." She also writes compellingly of her working-class immigrant background: her furnace repairman father, blackened by grease and soot; her alluring but volatile mother; her dying 92-year-old grandfather ("my grandfather is sleeping/ Basta./ Dormi in pace ora./ Dante. Recipes. Ave Maria." The appeal of this fine first collection, winner of the 1993 Barnard New Women's Poets Prize, is its intense clarity of language, which, like the city that inspired many of its poems, is gritty, complex, and always in motion. Highly recommended for collections of contemporary poetry.
- Christine Stenstrom, Shea & Gould Law Lib., New York
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 128 pages
• Publisher: Beacon Press (April 30, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0807068233
• ISBN-13: 978-0807068236
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #594,442 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars excellent,vibrant poetry, April 16, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: That Kind of Danger (Barnard New Women Poets Series) (Paperback)

Donna Masini is truly gifted. Her fine novel, "About Yvonne" led me to her poetry. You don't have to be anything like Masini to enjoy Masini. She's that good. Hoping to own and entire shelf of Masini books one day...

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a new book for respectors of the classics, May 6, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: That Kind of Danger (Barnard New Women Poets Series) (Paperback)

Ms. Masini's book is dense and honest. Each word and line is exactly sculpted to open up a kalidescope view of being a woman, being working class and being a New Yorker. She shocks the reader with her forceful courage in every poem. She is the classic New York writer. Don't expect to finish reading even one poem without discovering a dark and sordid corner of yourself you haven't yet exposed to the sun. Her poems are crafted with old school expertness. There are no errors; only quivering, precise rockets.

2 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Cliched, self-involved, and dull, May 13, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: That Kind of Danger (Barnard New Women Poets Series) (Paperback)

How could a book of poetry offer less than this? Everything here follows the tried-and-false formula of American poetry from the 1980s--except that this book came many years after these experiments had calcified. If you're looking for intriguing language, psychological or intellectual depth, gorgeous or strange imagery, or anything of any interest whatsoever--look somewhere else. Somewehere far, far from here.