Odessa: Poems (Lindquist & Vennum Prize for Poetry) - Softcover

Kirkpatrick, Patricia

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1571314563 ISBN 13: 9781571314567

Publisher: Milkweed Editions, 2012

Synopsis

A grim prognosis, brain cancer, leaves the speaker in Kirkpatrick’s Odessa fighting for her life. The tumor presses against her amygdalae, the emotional core of the self,” and central to the process of memory. In poems endowed with this emotional charge but void of sentimentality, Kirkpatrick sets out to recreate what was lost by fashioning a dreamlike reality. Odessa, roof of the underworld,” a refuge at once real and imagined, resembles simultaneously the Midwestern prairie and a mythical god-inhabited city. In image-packed lines bearing shades of Classical heroism, Kirkpatrick delivers a personal narrative of stunning dimension.

About this title

From the Inside Flap

The Lindquist & Vennum Prize for Poetry
Judged by Peter Campion

Praise for Odessa

Among the many talents that contemporary American poetry offers, Patricia Kirkpatrick’s Odessa shines a fierce white light. In nervy sentences and phrases, in sinuous and firm lines, Kirkpatrick shows the imprint of deeply lived experience. I am convinced that Odessa will move its readers for many, many years to come.” Peter Campion

One of the speakers in these compelling poems declares, I am writing to say I have been opened and closed.’ That is the truth of this book, its small map and enormous journey. As the poems show, we make this sojourn together even as the details make news of us all.” Alberto Ríos

Like Tomas Tranströmer, Kirkpatrick understands what is rational but false; what is irrational but true. Supremely lyrical, brilliantly imagined this is poetry of the highest order. In these pages, Beauty and suffering / keep making the world.’” Connie Wanek

The nearness of grief and illness haunt the deep currents of this book to the extent that the present moment cannot be verified. If what once was known appears to return, it comes back changed. Thus the consciousness of this grave book must be finely calibrated and it is. The reader is brought into the presence of a mind learning itself for the second time. Most of us experience such wonder only once.” Maurice Manning

These poems ache with the inescapable beauty of landscapes that remind us of human loneliness. This is a remarkably honest and deeply loving collection of poems. I haven’t read anything quite so moving in a very long time.” Eleanor Lerman
|Poetry $16
Near Odessa

Near the end of summer.
Wheatfield with lark. With swift,
longspur, and sparrow. I see the birds
opening tails and wings
above grasses
and hidden nests.
Soybeans with bells, yellowing, green
tassels of corn, geese
again and again.
I see the birds
but wind takes all the sound.
Small towns are reduced to chains or storefronts,
boarded-up.
Almost to the river called a lake, gray stones of water,
dammed, white-capped, hinge
between states.
Some fields are so gold they seem to be singing.
The gold fields lie down, flat but not empty,
and will be harvested later with blades.
Near Odessa
I come to a place where the end is beginning.
Where the light is absolute, it rises.
Patricia Kirkpatrick is the author of Century’s Road, as well as several chapbooks of poetry. Her work has appeared widely in journals, including Poetry, Prairie Schooner, Threepenny Review, and Antioch Review, and in several anthologies, among them She Walks in Beauty: A Woman’s Journey Through Poems, edited by Caroline Kennedy. Kirkpatrick lives in Saint Paul, Minnesota.

About the Author

Patricia Kirkpatrick is the author of Century’s Road (Holy Cow! Press, 2004) as well as several books for young readers and chapbooks of poetry. Her work has appeared widely in journals including Prairie Schooner, Poetry, Agni Online, Threepenny Review, Saint Paul Almanac, and Antioch Review, and additionally in several anthologies, among them Robert Bly In This World (University of Minnesota Press, 2011) and She Walks in Beauty: A Woman’s Journey Through Poems, edited by Caroline Kennedy (Hyperion Voice, 2005). She is the recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Bush Foundation, the Minnesota State Arts Board, and two Loft-McKnight awards. Currently the poetry editor for Water~Stone Review, Kirkpatrick lives in Saint Paul, Minnesota.

Edition details

• Publisher: Milkweed Editions
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 1571314563
• ISBN 13: 9781571314567
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 96