Boneshaker (Pitt Poetry Series) - Softcover

Beatty, Jan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0822957795 ISBN 13: 9780822957799

Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2002

Synopsis

In hard-hitting, sophisticated, often lyrical language, Jan Beatty investigates the idea of the body as cultural machine, shelter, mirage, or home. She rescripts the birth scene with girders and industrial pulleys; the womb as inhabited by a young girl architect. Structurally adventurous, the poems in Boneshaker question icons and invoke taboos, connect desire with place and class, walk the tightrope between sex and love.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

"'Wild girl fire' is what Jan Beatty calls it, 'that white-hot tearing' that ignites into art or self-destruction. Poetry against all odds. Poetry as the death-defying act. Poetry as the wild choice for a girl running reckless from the working class. Between odd jobs and odd loves, Beatty writes from the tender heart without flinching." -Sandra Cisneros

"This is slap in the face, wake the fuck up and smell the roses poetry. This is pay attention Bub, or you'll be in a jam poetry; poetry written in defiance of gravity and in the face of all the forces of our own desire that want to drag us down. And underneath all of this wildness is a true love and care for craft, and the anxious, bluesy rhythm of good talk, like a river." -Bruce Weigl

"What is the body? In Jan Beatty's courageous, beautiful, and harsh new book, the body is as horrifyingly without boundaries as the cosmos, as constricted as a prison cell. Language, too, is a body. At times, it is stitched up tight in the structures of narrative. At other times, chopped and opened up, not even a sentence survives intact. Restless with complacency and restriction, this book ricochets among a multitude of forms, tones, subjects. Boneshaker is a fierce, intelligent, terrifying interrogation of categories, among them the category of the book. Nothing is beyond the reach of this splendid new work." -Lynn Emanuel

"There is a school of poetry where the poems have the content, where they communicate, where beauty is not forgotten. It is about work, family, and the lost towns. Grief. Jan is a central figure in this school." -Gerald Stern

About the Author:

Jan Beatty is the author of Mad River, winner of the 1994 Agnes Lynch Starrett Prize, and Ravenous, winner of the 1995 State Street Chapbook Prize. Her poetry has appeared in numerous publications and anthologies.

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0822957795
• ISBN 13: 9780822957799
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 104