Vacation of a Lifetime (Salt Modern Poets S.) [Paperback]

Andrea Brady (Author)

Book Description

Series: Salt Modern Poets S. | Publication Date: August 1, 2001

"Migration" - Bright talons of pollen migrate up the map of the United Kingdom into snowbright circles of the pole so our talk had a certain ring to it. Clattering before the camera caribou race their leafy heads through crannies on the canada map. They can feel bishops' eyes staring down the tube and still run cool like vast colonies of whales for the frost. Ventricles of the ocean squeeze blue wineskins burst onto the ice cake and the sky reflects mazes of blood from the white plains. I take you into my heart. I take you into my foot throttling its shake of ground into my belly like tomorrow into my hips for the acres to be covered by sundown. You have no choice as flocks of screeching amazonian birds arrive to replace us the herd runs in one body under the high tree of sky. We leave our smell on the backs of chairs.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Effecting an off-site sifting of virulently sexualized, life-style-propping policies that kill people, Andrea Brady takes readers on a Vacation of a Lifetime, her first book of poems. An American poet now teaching in London, Brady works past First World lies and representations, taking idioms and ideology and warping them back from outside: "bullets/ bought by staff at the heart shaped cafe." Throughout, the book's deep engagement with lyric as valid and viable cultural expression, despite its imperial history in English, evinces a belief in imagining other truths: "If you can reach/ to pull your presents toward you, I am there/ at the breaking point, floodlit with you and different/ as the world is now: I found/ for you a brighter hemisphere."
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

Effecting an off-site sifting of virulently sexualized, life-style-propping policies that kill people, Andrea Brady takes readers on a Vacation of a Lifetime, her first book of poems. An American poet now teaching in London, Brady works past First World lies and representations, taking idioms and ideology and warping them back from outside: "bullets/ bought by staff at the heart shaped cafe." Throughout, the book's deep engagement with lyric as valid and viable cultural expression, despite its imperial history in English, evinces a belief in imagining other truths: "If you can reach/ to pull your presents toward you, I am there/ at the breaking point, floodlit with you and different/ as the world is now: I found/ for you a brighter hemisphere. Publishers Weekly Freedom to move through different gears allows the recycling of different registers to overlap without straining the juxtaposition of local word games and harsh political realities. The fire power generated by torpedoes of excess is just what these poems need and theres plenty of transgression. If some of the poems relate to news stories whose urgency has faded in the light of subsequent events, theres still something new about the sense of a political testament, a record of what it means to face up to the problems of the present. This book is not for the faint-hearted, and it takes a while to find ways into the brasher surfaces, but it is a rare example of a book of poems where the struggle between political radicalism and poetic form is worth sharing. Despite its title, Vacation of a Lifetime is no holiday. -- Keith Elliot Terrible Work

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Product Details

• Paperback: 144 pages
• Publisher: Salt Publishing (August 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1876857161
• ISBN-13: 978-1876857165
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.8 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.5 ounces
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,920,168 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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