The White Eyelash: Poems [Paperback]

Susan Kinsolving (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 16, 2003 | ISBN-10: 0802140297 | ISBN-13: 978-0802140296 | Edition: First Edition

Susan Kinsolving's first collection, Dailies & Rushes, was hailed as a remarkable debut by The New York Times, The New Yorker, and The Wall Street Journal, and named a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. In her new work, The White Eyelash, she turns the extremes of her recent experiences into poems of harsh factuality. This dark narrative sequence is highly contrasted by the humor presented in a section called "Light Fare and Oddballs." Once again, Kinsolving exhibits a daunting range with signature style and substance.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The follow-up to Kinsolving's widely praised Dailies & Rushes (1999) finds the poet remembering her troubled mother, concentrating on visual detail or pursuing light-verse forms and verbal games with a demotically highbrow, casual grace. The most memorable new poems concern a mother whose mental illness made the poet's teen years hard; with a conversational feel that belies her lines' painful facts, Kinsolving describes her mother's decline into dementia, her last months in hospitals and nursing homes, and the mysteries that remain: near death, the mother "shouts, I hope you get arrested for having everything/ your own way! And now, neither of us knows what to say." These poems have the virtues, and defects, of straightforward memoir, focusing more on events and feelings than on verbal detail. Straightforward autobiographical lyrics also take up a daughter (now adult) and travel (the Isle of Skye). Kinsolving shows more delight, however, in the less personal stand-alone poems with which the volume begins and ends. Her light verse includes run-on couplets, a villanelle, lyrics for a cantata about astronomy and some in-jokes (including a purported e-mail from Emily Dickinson); these last shade into Kinsolving's more serious, elegiac verse, focused on lost creatures and lost things, from endangered species to forgotten poems. Often organized around colors ("gray graphite," blood, deep snow) these poems show a love for beauty and a casual line reminiscent of Eamon Grennan's. Kinsolving takes care to reflect "other worlds, other lives, what is not/ true, kaleidoscope turning, changing points of view."
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Language Notes

Text: English, French (translation)

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Grove Press; First Edition edition (September 16, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802140297
• ISBN-13: 978-0802140296
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.1 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: #2,151,177 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 Awesome!, March 6, 2006

By 

Paisley (New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Fizzles (Hardcover)

[...]
Fizzles is a queer collection of eight drabbles that can easily be taken as poetry; it tastes just like Beckett, so if you know and love his work, you're sure to enjoy this.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing Encore!, March 5, 2005

By 

Roxanne (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The White Eyelash: Poems (Paperback)

A brilliant continuation of the deep and at times dark poetry of a mysterious and enchanting poet. Her sense of language is mesmerizing, while her thoughts, lessons, and experiences leave the reader with a sense that they have both learned something about the poet and themselves. I would highly recommend this book to anyone, whether poetry enthusiasts or not, in addition to all her other work. Bravo Susan Kinsolving! I look forward to more.