The Way Out: Poems by Lisa Sewell [Paperback]

Lisa Sewell (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1, 2002

The Way Out dares to enter the many underworlds of human existence: that of Persephone, that of Dante, and that of contemporary life. At once dark and affirmative, the poems move from personal observation to personal disclosure, never averting their gaze from the face they are seeing. Lisa Sewell is the unusual poet who uses the confessional mode in the service of reflecting fully, and with fidelity, the moment in which we now find ourselves. Her bodies, faces, temperaments, resemble our own, and these poems are a record of what it means to be human and American in the last years of the twentieth century.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"'We are hopelessly enclosed by the measure of our skins,' Lisa Sewell writes. The argument at the heart of this book is whether the body is a source of hopelessness or hope. 'I put my faith in the physical,' Sewell tells us, but she understands how belief necessitates doubt, only existing beside it. Focused and accomplished, this fine debut collection is a fierce and engaging quarrel with the fact of flesh." -- Mark Doty

"Lisa Sewell's poetry brings to mind Keats' phrase, 'thinking through the heart.' More than any young poet writing today, her work frames an urgency shot through with history as she builds a model of consciousness, original, strange. These poems enact a lyric muscle that explodes narrative, throws it wonderfully off track into new regions of feeling, thought, experience." -- Deborah Digges

"There's a terrible purity to the desolation from which many of these poems emerge. They emerge with unlacquered finality. Their gaze is pitiless. Cumulatively Sewell's poems possess great weight and power. In this ferocious book you will find the consolation of something seen deeply, the consolations of art." -- Frank Bidart

In A Biblical Landscape
The Announcement
The Art Of Survival
At The Heart Of The Season
Choke Cherries
Chorale
Circe, After His Departure
The Darkened Room
A Dedication
The Denied
Donor
Dream Of Winter
Empty Dish
Entry
Evolution
Expulsion
Forty Years
The Good Servant
Health
Human Nature
Inheritance
Love Poem
Messenger
The Miraculous
More Or Less
My Body In Japan
Numerology
One Of The Foolish Women
Ornithology
The Passion Of The Queen
The Quickening
Refuge
Release
Surrender
The Swimmer
Telling Them Apart
The Thief
Trompe L'oeil
Two Lessons In The Sacred: 1
Two Lessons In The Sacred: 2
The Way Out Of The Hospital
-- Table of Poems from Poem Finder®

Product Details

• Paperback: 80 pages
• Publisher: Alice James Books; 1st edition (July 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 188229517X
• ISBN-13: 978-1882295173
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.6 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,618,706 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Rigorous poetry, could use more world-view, December 26, 2000

By 

"joely1" - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Way Out: Poems by Lisa Sewell (Paperback)

Lisa Sewell's is a distinctive voice. If her range of subject is limited, if her tireless self-perusal could benefit at the very least from a sense of humor, she's nonetheless a poet to watch for her rigorous and often unexpected diction and the way that she treads a taut tightrope between spoken speech and literary lingo.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Flaccid poems by an academic poet, July 11, 2000

By 

Oz du Soleil - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Way Out: Poems by Lisa Sewell (Paperback)

"a fierce and engaging quarrel with the fact of flesh" Mark Doty made this statement in his review. This statement and others led me to believe I was about to take on a tough poet. One who would offer a comprehensive world-view; displaying all the beauty, grime, nastiness, ecstasy, noxious odors, etc...

The reviews had me thinking I might have found a female Charles Bukowski.

I got the anti-thesis of Charles Bukowski: an academic, who's better at word-smithing than articulating a comprehensive worthwhile idea.

Sewell, strings together angst-ridden words in a run-o-the-mill, sappy way. Nothing new or interesting here. No unique perspective. I found a couple of moments where Sewell almost got something going, but they were wrapped in 2-dimensional, impotent ideas about identity, God, love.

If you're looking for safe poems, get this book. If you want something electric, full of fire, and unique... stay very far away.

5.0 out of 5 stars A wonderful work, May 23, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: The Way Out: Poems by Lisa Sewell (Paperback)

"The Way Out" is a wonderful work of poetry. The poems concern many aspects of the human condition in terms both sensitive and searching. The poems are moving in their frankness and tenderness, are perceptive in their depth of gaze and allusion, and exhibit a high degree of craft in their use of language and image. I highly recommend it.