Cold Comfort: Selected Poems 1970-1996 (Paperback)

by Lyn Lifshin (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review
After A Day We Stay In Bed Until The Sun Is Close To Setting
Afternoons In The Blue Rain
Afterward
Afterward
Afterwrd, Going To My Mother's Apartment
Alberta Hunter
All Afternoon We
All The Women Poets I Like Didn't Have Their Fathers
Am I Talking To Hair Or To A Person
Barbie Hunts Thru Medical Books Looking For What Is Wrong
Barbie Watches Tv Alone, Naked
Barbie Wonders About Buying A Coffin
Bargain
Barnstable, Two Years Ago
Black Rain, Hiroshima
The Blind Basket Maker
Blue Velvet Pillows
The Cat's Yelp In Black Light
The Child We Will Not Have
Condom Chain Letter
Curling On The Bottom Of My Mother's Bed
Dark Matter May Bind The Universe
The Daughter I Don't Have (1)
The Daughter I Don't Have (2)
The Daughter I Don't Have (3)
The Daughter I Don't Have (4)
The Daughter I Don't Have (5)
The Daughter I Don't Have (6)
The Daughter I Don't Have (7)
Dream Of Ivy
Dream Of The Pink And Black Lace, Just Like The Evening Gown
Drifting
Elaine
Enchanted Mesa
The Erotic Mirror
Estelle, Star Stones
Even There
Falling To The Ground, He Traces Stars
Fat
Fitzi In The Yearbook
Georgia O'keefe
Getting My Mother Ice
Hair
Having You Come Up After So Much Time
He Said He Saw My Picture In Rolling Stone
He Said He Was In The Men's Room At The Airport, A W.b.story
He Said In The Hospital It
He'd Rather Have A Paper Doll
He's Moved Everything He Needs Into One Room
Hearing Of Reagan's Trip To Bitburg
Here
Holding Animals
I Looked Young A Long Time, Didn't I
I Think Of Her In A Pleated Skirt Held Like A Fan
I Was Four In Dotted
If Hair Could Sift Down
In A Notebook From Paris
In The Dream
In The Va Hospital
In This Version
Indian Summer
It Was Like Wintergreen
Jackie-o Reads The Story Of O And Wonders About Having Own
Jeanne Marie Plouffe
The Jesuit Who Doesn't Care For Money
The Jesuit Who Writes Around
Jesus Wonders About Going Into Partnership With Mayflower
The Knife Thrower's Woman
The Lanae, Hotel Kaiamona
Leaving Rome
Lemon Wind
Light From This Turning
Lorena Hears Her Penis Calling For Her
Love Like Shoplifting
Lust Blowing Under The Door, Bright As Straw
The Mad Girl Dials Victoria's Secret After Midnight
The Mad Girl Feels She's On A Leash, Could Be In Leningrad
The Mad Girl Needs More Than Most Others
The Mad Girl Picks Inaccessible Men
The Mad Girl Remembers White Umbrellas, River Boat Jazz
The Mad Girl Wraps Her Book Of Erotica In A Jacket
Mama
The Man Coming Out Of Darkness
The Man Who Is Married To Siamese Twins Joined At The Skull
Middlelbury Poem
Mint Leaves At Yaddo
Mother And Daughter Photographs
Muriel Rukeyser Accepting An Honorary Degree
Mustache
My Father Tells Us About Leaving Vilnius
My Mother And The Lilacs
My Mother And The Matches
My Mother Listens To Classical Music
My Mother Straightening Pots And Pans
My Mother Wants Lambchops, Steaks, Lobster, Roast Beef
My Mother Who Can't See
My Mother's Address Book
My Mother's Ring
My Mother's Tweezers
My Sister Says But Doesn't Everyone Waste Their Life
My Sister Wants Me To Come And Read Through Thirty Years
My Uncle Is Selling His Store
Names
Navy Barbie
New England Sunday
New Hampshire
Nice
Nichols Lodge In The Rain. Or, The Night Before My Mother
North Of Cottonwood
Not Quite Spring
Not Thinking It Was So With Yellow Flowers
November 1 Boogie
Nuns At A Retreat
Obituary
Old Men Hotel Brenner, Saratoga, N.y.
The Old Woman In Amsterdam
On Telegraph Hill
On The New Road
On The Other Coast
Orals
Other Septembers
The Pearls
Photograph
Photographs Of Mothers And Daughters
Picasso Standing Near Some Germans After He Painted Guernica
The President's Arms Are Like Oak Branches
The President's Thighs Hide Out In The Rose Garden
Putting My Mother To Bed
Reading Those Poems Because I Can't Get Started Thinking
Resuscitating Annie
Riverwind, Magnolias
Shadows Of Steam On Champagne, Concrete
She Said I Know It's Almost Midnight But I Wanted To Give
She Said She Could See Music
She Said The Geese
She Waits Like Some Sharp Cheddar In The Pantry
Snow Fences, Wormwood
Somewhere In The Midwest
Somewhere Ner Vilna
South Of Here
Staying In My Mother's Apartment The First Time Without Her
Taking My Mother To The Bathroom
Tentacles, Leaves
That July
Thaw
There Were Always Stars
There Were Blue Grapes Behind The House
Things That Shine In Quebec City As The Sun Falls
Thirty Miles West Of Chicgo
Treblinka
Twenty Four Trillium
The Ugliest Woman To Painter Who Turned Her Down On Street
Under The Rose
Violet Jelly
War
Weeds And Woodsmoke
When I Put On Her Fur Coat
Whips At The Ritz
Why Aerograms Are Always Blue
Wild Horses Dying
Wild Thyme
With So Many Voices
With You
With Your Name Leaking Down My Skin
The Woman Who Canned Hands, Sometimes Fingers
Writing Class, Syracuse Winter
The Yahrtzeit Light
Years Later Lorena Thinks Of The Penis She Had For A Day
Yellow Roses
You Take For Granted
You Understand The Requirements
Your Words
-- Table of Poems from Poem Finder®

Product Description
"Magnificently crafted poems, terse as needlework" (Choice) these concise field reports from a woman warrior at the front line of feeling confirm the suggestion of Ed Sanders that Lyn Lifshin qualifies as "a modern Emily Dickinson."

Lifshin writes with energy, fire, and truth of the common world of experience. Bearing signs of struggle, pain, and loss, these poems carry the history of the body with agony and pride, as enduring tokens of what it is to be alive.

Product Details

• Paperback: 278 pages
• Publisher: Black Sparrow Press (August 1, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1574230409
• ISBN-13: 978-1574230406
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.9 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #2,179,846 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Electrifying, a shock to the system!, November 29, 1999

By	John Birkbeck (Iowa City, IA , USA) - See all my reviews

Reading Lyn's poems gets the mind set to a beat which whirls into a crescendo of image and sound combined into a different force if their own. Her poems are terse and no-nonsense; she does not play around. Her short lines and minimal use of punctuation, and sometimes leaving out a word, allows the reader's own imagination to fill in the blanks-- which are not really blanks, but blind spots which the mind and eye must pick up ensemble. Sometimes, when I read her poems, I feel that I've ridden a whirlwing to a far-off but familliar place. You gotta read this book!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Absolutely Wonderful., July 16, 1998

By	M. Nichols "fan of beer, motorhead and zombie... (West Chester, OH United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I had been waiting for this book for some time, after becoming acquainted with the author's work through various journals. It was worth the wait.

I cannot even think of another poet who wraps words so tightly around the page. Not a single syllable is wasted. It would be insulting to the author to attempt to describe the "feel" of her poetry in 1,000 words or less. Simply put, I have never been more moved by written words. You feel as if you had dreamed every word the night before and wish you had written it down first. Absolutely inspiring.

Along with Ted Hughes' BIRTHDAY LETTERS, this is the only other absolutely necessary book of poetry within the past year

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars THE DOYENNE DOES IT AGAIN!, March 16, 2000

By	Doug Holder (Cambridge, MA.) - See all my reviews

I picked up Lifshin's book at a bookstore in Portsmouth, NH., didn't put it down for awhile. Where else can you get a book that deals with love, life and death so beautifully. Her work inspires me to do better as a writer and a poet.