Waiting For The Paraclete (Barnard New Women Poets Series) [Paperback]

Lise Goett (Author)

Book Description

Series: Barnard New Women Poets Series | Publication Date: April 18, 2002

The people in Lise Goett's stunning collection are waiting-restlessly, blindly, hopefully-for the one who gives succor, the Paraclete of the title. With a vision both expansive and acute, Goett takes in everything from a fishing accident in Wisconsin to a butcher's stall in Paris and even the life and death of Gary Gilmore, to focus with a rare combination of emotional exactitude and music on the forces that govern the world of the flesh as it transforms into the world of the spirit.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Not quite a UP title, this debut won the Barnard New Women Poets Prize. Goett writes an "Ode to a Pair of White Gloves ("The hands suspect espionage"), tracks "The White Tiger of Vladivostok" ("It knew no lent but hunger") and "take[s] solace" in Paris lingerie: "safe in your fortress, festooned in your elaborate armor, ...fastenings as complex as the French legal code." If a paraclete is an intercessor of any sort (and not necessarily the Holy Spirit), then for Goett's speaker, the "the lily of the angel insinuated itself into her darkness with what fate and force engenders there."
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Review

This exemplary first collection is the lyric record of a contemplative spirit's going-forth, of her soul's discernment, the experience of personal and intimate communion, erotic passion and divine mystery, corporeal hunger and 'naught else but yearning' for the mysterium tremendum. There is a radiance about these poems, and a supplicant's willingness to lay bare the desire enshrined in her very selfhood. For this poet, music is the soul's correlative, the sheath that allows the journey to be borne. --Carolyn Forché

"This new poet relies on the telling of drastic things, even joy, even assent. She trusts to what the French call histoires, meaning trouble, meaning lies, meaning truth. For story organizes our mind and what faith we have: narrative is the final governance-as in these patient, swift poems--of the merest lyric cry. Just consider how Lise Goett begins a poem: 'Look up. Your life is suddenly ending-' and even more potently, how she ends one:’ . . . until something happens,/until a river runs through the house/and washes everything away:/then in the morning we'll rise, we'll begin,/to build our Babel again.’ Poetic authority (as juridical, psychiatric, dramatic) is in the tale-bearing. Lise Goett is speaking for her life, and we are compelled to listen-she is a Scheherazade of the spirit." --Richard Howard

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Product Details

• Paperback: 80 pages
• Publisher: Beacon Press (April 18, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0807068675
• ISBN-13: 978-0807068670
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.2 x 8.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.7 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,616,194 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Perfection of a Brush, July 24, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Waiting For The Paraclete (Barnard New Women Poets Series) (Paperback)

I first encountered this brand of incredulity when, many years ago, I really looked long and hard at a painting by Ingres (The Bather). For the life of me, I couldn't figure out how it was done. Was this really paint? Did a brush lay it down? The picture seemed so perfect in matter, in its graceful redemption of the world. This is hard to explain. What I'm trying to say is, the artist didn't appear to have intervened; and here I was, a spectator beholding pure form, emotion flowing directly from the source of life. I am struck by the same sensation in reading this book. In these poems, one recognizes those old partners in time: love, death, despair, the absurd, and the divine, and one is astonished and even terrified at rediscovering all these bright and dark spots of our mortality. I love the way Goett gives little plots to the emotions. She tells me about what I know and don't know but most of all she fashions the astonishing uncommon substance of life and combines it with the unexpectedly common stuff of it, too--the earthy and unearthly--so that the reader is suddenly made aware of them both at the same time.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Effortless Seduction, July 5, 2002

By 

Corey (New York, NY, United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Waiting For The Paraclete (Barnard New Women Poets Series) (Paperback)

Goett's collection ranks among the best contemporary poetry I've read. I first came across her work in several well-respected literary journals, and was so moved by her extraordinary writing ability that I kept each journal to return to her poems again and again. Her subjects are compelling, her images vivid, startling, and fresh. Rereading this collection, I am newly amazed by what this writer is able to accomplish with language.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Magic, July 19, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Waiting For The Paraclete (Barnard New Women Poets Series) (Paperback)

Goett uses words to lead, to touch, and to surround you with your world, revealing the corners that are familiar yet unexplored. Her words are magic, conjuring and revealing. I was drawn to sit and ponder life as seen through this wonderful poet. More a fiction reader, I was held by the words of these poems and so happy to have come upon this work. A must read - must own book!