What Feeds Us [Paperback]

Diane Lockward (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

In this brimming collection Diane Lockward's considerable wit engages both what is askew and awry and what to a lesser eye might seem to be standing up straight. She never takes you where you expect to go--that is part of her talent and her sassy wisdom. She is an original and a delight.
---Baron Wormser

What Feeds Us is sometimes humorous and sometimes heartbreaking. Diane Lockward's language is both plain-spoken and rich, lush. This is a wonderful book that might not nourish your body but certainly will nourish your heart.
---Thomas Lux

In these sparkling poems, Diane Lockward takes life as it comes and finds nourishment in it all: succulence of the peach, redolence of the pear, the "green grape of sorrow." I love these poems for their craft, sensuality and energy. Like high-wire acts of language and imagination, they almost leap in the air and come down again on the wire, balancing between witty and dark, personal and invented, idea and emotion.
---Patricia Fargnoli

About the Author

Diane Lockward is the author of two previous collections, Eve's Red Dress (Wind Publications, 2003) and a chapbook, Against Perfection (Poets Forum Press, 1998). Her poems have been published in several anthologies, including Poetry Daily: 366 Poems from the World's Most Popular Poetry Website and Garrison Keillor's Good Poems for Hard Times. Her poems have appeared in such journals as The Beloit Poetry Journal, Spoon River Poetry Review, Ascent, Poet Lore, Fulcrum, and Prairie Schooner. Her work has also been featured on Poetry Daily and Verse Daily, and read by Garrison Keillor on NPR's The Writer's Almanac.

Product Details

• Paperback: 100 pages
• Publisher: Wind Publications (October 15, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1893239578
• ISBN-13: 978-1893239579
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,496,127 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Diane Lockward is the author of What Feeds Us (Wind Publications, 2006) which received the Quentin R. Howard Poetry Prize. She is also the author of Eve's Red Dress (Wind Publications, 2003), and a chapbook, Against Perfection (Poets Forum Press, 1998). Her poems have been published in several anthologies, including Poetry Daily: 366 Poems from the World's Most Popular Poetry Website and Garrison Keillor's Good Poems for Hard Times. Her poems have also appeared in such journals as Harvard Review, Spoon River Poetry Review, and Prairie Schooner, and have been featured on Poetry Daily, Verse Daily, and The Writer's Almanac. She is the recipient of a 2003 Poetry Fellowship from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts and has received awards from North American Review, Louisiana Literature, the Newburyport Art Association, and the St. Louis Poetry Center. A former high school English teacher, Diane now works as a poet-in-the-schools. www.dianelockward.com

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Simply Delicious, November 28, 2006

By 

A Reader (Pennsylvania) - See all my reviews

This review is from: What Feeds Us (Paperback)

I just loved Diane Lockward's first book, Eve's Red Dress; so often, unfortunately, the second collection fails to live up to the first one, but I am happy to report that this is not the case here. What Feeds Us is a veritable bonbon box chock full of yummy poems. There are poems about food, from cold pizza, to the "green grape of sorrow," to a pastry shared by two lovers: "He bites / from one end, I the other, the custard between us sweet / as French kisses, our tongues foraging like bees / in blossoms, our faces plastered with chocolate." There's even a concrete poem in the shape of an avocado. And there are poems about the inner things that feed us, or fail to, the many shapes of hunger: loss and unrequited love, the complicated love between parent and child, the hungry heart, the body's longings. Part of the way Lockward's poems are so unforgettable is her use of luscious language and snappy diction: bees that "buzz . . ./ in their velvet tutus," the pickle, "its green obscene shape," an avocado, "pear / gone crazy," "bottom-heavy like a woman in a Renoir." I could go on and on, but you'll just have to read these Turkish delights for yourself. I've read so many dull, flat, and just-plain-boring poetry books lately, but this one I read with pleasure from cover to cover. There's not a clunker or a bad line in the entire collection. What Feeds Us is absolutely delicious, deep, dark, and rich, like a really great chocolate cake.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Vanilla, Linguini, and the First Artichoke: A Hunger for All That and More, November 26, 2006

By 

Susan Rich "Susan" (Seattle, WA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: What Feeds Us (Paperback)

These deceivingly simple poems recast the unembellished life as something strange and new. Whether displaying her gift for celebration or her flair for melancholic reckoning, Diane Lockward's work ushers us heart first into her world: up close and personal. As in the poem "Love Test: A Ghazal" she tries out several poetic forms and hits clear notes each time, "I've studied, done research, pulled all-nighters / but I can't master the lesson. Love" is one of the couplets that highlights her ability to conjure emotion in what looks like a sleight of hand, but is actually no easy flick of the wrist. Other favorite poems include "Heart on the Unemployment Line," "Insomniac," and "Pyromania." This is a collection for anyone who likes to eat, love, or imagine another's full and alluring life.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brief, free-verse poems that embraces all forms of nourishment in life itself., March 3, 2007

By 

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

This review is from: What Feeds Us (Paperback)

Winner of the Quentin R. Howard Poetry Prize 2006, What Feeds Us is former high school English teacher Diane Lockward's latest collection of brief, free-verse poems that embraces all forms of nourishment in life itself. From a petulant, invective poem against bumblebees to enjoying and celebrating the pleasure of an anniversary to the haunting analogy between creating a house for wrens to nest in and trying to become pregnant, What Feeds Us paints sublimely with descriptive language, sometimes plain-spoken, sometimes obliquely surreptitious. "Reconstruction": I am a house he would move into, / so framed for this man. With hammer / and nails he holds me together, / such tools he carries, his pliers, his adze, / gives me his awl, his drill and bits. / He puts a roof over my head. / I am shingled and waterproofed, / plumbed, mitered, and wired. He makes / of me a dream house, a cream puff, / my rough-hewn timber smoothed. / Broom-clean, in move-in condition. / I am two-storied now. He builds a fire in me.