What to Eat, What to Drink, What to Leave for Poison [Paperback]

CAMILLE DUNGY (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 2006

Camille Dungy has a garden of verses that spring up with the sunshine or hide with you in the dusk. Cleaning best sums up What to Eat, What to Drink, What to Leave for Poison, an amazing poetry collection, when Dungy pens understanding clearly/what is fatal to the body./I only understand too late/what can be fatal to the heart. Take an ice tea and sit on the veranda or take a glass of wine and prop up in bed but whatever way you like your poetry, this book is a must. Nikki Giovanni, author of The Collected Poems of Nikki Giovanni and Black Feeling, Black Talk

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Camille T. Dungy has been awarded fellowships and awards from organizations including the National Endowment for the Arts, Cave Canem, Bread Loaf Writers Conference, and the American Antiquarian Society. A graduate of Stanford University and the MFA program at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro, she lives in San Francisco, CA where she serves as an Associate Professor in the Creative Writing Department at San Francisco State University. Her work has appeared in The Missouri Review, The Southern Review, The Crab Orchard Review, From the Fishouse, Poetry Daily, and other publications.

Product Details

• Paperback: 88 pages
• Publisher: Red Hen Press; First Edition edition (March 1, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 159709000X
• ISBN-13: 978-1597090001
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.1 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #98,955 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A collection of free-verse poetry about the vagaries of life, milestone marks, and common day-to-day observations, November 5, 2006

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: What to Eat, What to Drink, What to Leave for Poison (Paperback)

Award-winning African-American poet Camille T. Dungy presents What to Eat, What to Drink, What to Leave for Poison, a collection of free-verse poetry about the vagaries of life, milestone marks, and common day-to-day observations, all narrated with a down-to-earth flavor and a unique gift for succinctly shaping emotion into the briefest of stanzas. A colorful collection that both revels in the joys of life and mourns its tragedies. "Fear": Do not change / your soap. I will not / know you. Fresh / from the shower / you smell sharp, / like a stone. / I know this. / I call it love. // Like my knowledge / of this hillside: sage / on the steepest slope, / eucalyptus, / near the rocky caves. This is how / I find my way home.

5.0 out of 5 stars Great new compilation, April 27, 2006

By 

B. Phillip Bullock - See all my reviews

This review is from: What to Eat, What to Drink, What to Leave for Poison (Paperback)

Dungy's poetry is entirely accessible. She brings a fresh and mature perspective to such well-worn themes as family, history, and the power and intimacy of relationships (to one another and to places -- costructucted and natural environments). The voices of her characters ring true, and her words are laden with sensual pleasures. Truly a joy.