The Overhaul: Poems - Softcover

Jamie, Kathleen

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1555977022 ISBN 13: 9781555977023

Publisher: Graywolf Press, 2015

Synopsis

Winner of the 2012 Costa Poetry Award, the latest collection by Kathleen Jamie, "the leading Scottish poet of her generation" (The Sunday Times)

See when it all unravels―the entire project
reduced to threads of moss fleeing a nor'wester;
d'you ever imagine chasing just one strand, letting it lead you
to an unsung cleft in a rock, a place you could take to,
dig yourself in―but what are the chances of that?
Of the birds,
few remain all winter; half a dozen waders
mediate between sea and shore, that space confirmed―don't laugh―by your own work.
―from "Materials"

The Overhaul continues Kathleen Jamie's lyric inquiry into the aspects of the world our rushing lives elide, and even threaten. Whether she is addressing birds or rivers, or the need to accept loss, or, sometimes, the desire to escape our own lives, her poetry is earthy and rigorous, her language at once elemental and tender. The Overhaul is a midlife book of repair, restitution, and ultimately hope―of the wisest and most worldly kind.

About this title

About the Author

Kathleen Jamie's poetry collections have received the Costa Poetry Award, the Forward Prize for Poetry, and the Scottish Book of the Year Award. She is also the author of two books of nonfiction, Findings and Sightlines. She lives in Fife, Scotland.

Review

“Read Waterlight: Selected Poems . . . Kathleen Jamie describes ordinary things--a puddle, a brooch, some frogs--with the rhythm of plain speech made starkly dramatic.” ―Entertainment Weekly on Waterlight: Selected Poems

“American readers can now meet a sensibility who attends to the living world, and the world as made in language with wily intelligence.” ―Boston Review on Waterlight: Selected Poems

About this edition

• Publisher: Graywolf Press
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 1555977022
• ISBN 13: 9781555977023
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 64