Masks: With an Introduction by Marge Piercy - Softcover

Robson, Ruthann

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0965457850 ISBN 13: 9780965457859

Publisher: Leapfrog Press, 1999

Synopsis

Best Poetry of 1999-Library Journal

Well known by readers of gay and lesbian fiction for her award-winning short story collections and novels; notorious in the legal profession as the nation's "foremost authority on lesbians and law" (Village Voice), a professor at the City University of New York, a young mother raising a son, Ruthann Robson's breadth of experience is unique among American poets. With seamless use of poetic craft and ironic wit, Robson tackles subjects as political as they are bizarre: the young woman chained to a radiator by her mother to keep her safe from harm; the teenager who gets herself knocked up because it's less dangerous to be an unwed mother than a lesbian. Affecting, terrifying, but always bathed in a clear hard light, these poems introduce a stunning intelligence and a bold new voice in American poetry.

"Ardent, passionate, and exquisitely queer…Robson's sense of playfulness is wonderful …The poems in Masks are startling not only for their quirky, often whimsical, humanity, but also for their imaginative use of form… There is history in this book. Witch burnings. Concentration camps. Poverty. Robson covers terrifying, white hot terrain with unflinching honesty and a poet's heart… She takes the magnifying glass of poetic language and investigates detail by detail every aspect of the female condition."-Lambda Book Report

"Another excellent book of poetry from 1999, Masks reveals how time and the moment of vision drive the poet to turn upon experience and make language out of it. These impressive poems swallow any distance between maker and reader as they pass from the glories of relationships to the price of loss. Some of Robson's best work is poems about famous women such as Frida Kahlo, Alice B. Toklas, Diane Arbus and Isadora Duncan. This is a truly marvelous collection that haunts the reader and never diminishes the art of the poem."-Bloomsbury Review

"Robson gives you more than you bargained for...Her first collection of poetry is terse yet throbbing, filled with the raw, aggressive energy of someone who can't be bothered with niceties...there is definite craft here: these lines aren't just thrown out but clearly thought and ret

About this title

About the Author

Ruthann Robson is a professor at the City University of New York School of Law. She has been recognized by the Village Voice as the nation's "leading authority on lesbians and law." She is the author of four books of fiction, most recently Another Mother and A/K/A (St. Martin's Press) and five books of nonfiction, including Sappho Goes to Law School (Columbia University Press). Her book of short stories Eye of a Hurricane was the winner of the Ferro-Grumley award for Fiction. She was twice a Lambda Award Finalist and has been nominated for the PEN/Faulkner Award.

From the Back Cover

"Here are poems on the brink of a new history we are making at the border between the 20th and 21st century. These poems are erudite and stand tall. They ask questions and are not afraid to listen. We learn from them: how to recognize ourselves without our masks, how to value the history of mask-making."- Joy Harjo

"As no autobiography or biography that I've read, Ruthann Robson's poems link without a shred of sentimentality, but with great compassion, the lives of women forced to fight for daily survival and for artistic creation. Personal genealogy and history merge to form a collective consciousness that seeps through each poem. Masks has immediacy, resonates with hard-won wisdom and, like all great poetry, changes the way we see ourselves and the society which tries to shape and frame us." - Irena Klepfisz

"Intelligent and intense, Ruthann Robson's poems cast an unflinching eye on the world. This poet not only sees, but 'hears'. She is haunted and inspired by voices of women struggling against oblivion. These voices rise in her poems, where they cry, shout, and sing. They are restored by the poet's words, and so are the rest of us."- Martn Espada

Masks is the affecting, sometimes terrifying debut collection of poems by award-winning fiction writer Ruthann Robson, whose writing, in the words of Marge Piercy's introduction, "is powerfully centered in the female experience, but with a take that is different from any other writer I can think of." Here we find poems that are frankly sexual and often passionate, but bathed in a clear hard light, even when she is dealing with the violent and the ultimately irrational. Some of these poems zero in on moments or trends in the poet's own life, such as the sensuality between mother and infant son, while others examine the female experience through women as diverse as Frieda Kahlo, Alice B. Toklas, Diane Arbus, Kathe Kollwitz, Mary Cassatt, Willa Cather and Isadora Duncan. With seamless use of poetic craft, ironic wit and luscious imagery, these poems introduce a stunning intelligence and a bold new voice in American poetry.

Reviews

As with Campo, Robson gives you more than you bargained for; aside from having published four books of fiction, five books of nonfiction, and countless poems in all the major journals, she has also published numerous articles in legal journals. (A professor at CUNY's School of Law, she is an expert on lesbian rights issues.) Her first collection of poetry is terse yet throbbing, filled with the raw, aggressive energy of someone who can't be bothered with niceties: "No one needs to tell me/ this is forbidden." But there is definite craft here; these lines aren't just thrown out but clearly thought and rethought: "you spend your days modelling/ mask after mask," says Robson, who must spend her days modelling poem after poem.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Leapfrog Press
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0965457850
• ISBN 13: 9780965457859
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 145