The Wanton Sublime: A Florilegium of Whethers and Wonders - Softcover

Rabinowitz, Anna

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1932195394 ISBN 13: 9781932195392

Publisher: Tupelo Press, 2006

Synopsis

In her dazzling third volume of poetry, The Wanton Sublime, Anna Rabinowitz creates nothing short of a new genre of utterance as she cuts through pieties and myths to get at the essential humanity of the Virgin Mary, and, ultimately, of all women.
The Wanton Sublime is an ""anthology"" of texts and commentaries that propels us on a breathtaking journey mapped by questions, conversations, and speculationsa journey to the very foundations of womanhood and motherhood.

Again and again Mary, exemplar of the feminine, quintessential mother, bearer/birther of divinity is re-visioned and re-defined; she is made kindred to Io, to Europa and to an ancient Egyptian woman who may have been the first unflinchingly assertive feminist. Rabinowitz investigates Mary as concept and as fact, as symbol and as flesh-and-blood female.

What does it mean to be chosen? How does one engage with otherness? What forces operate when one's life is interrupted? Are there possibilities of alternative narratives? How does one process the condition of not knowing? Linguistically brilliant and stylistically inventive, this daring work makes the universal particular, the particular universal.

The Wanton Sublime explores the burden, the dilemma and the glory of being chosen as it leads us to a renewed appreciation of what it means to be alive and a woman.

About this title

About the Author

Anna Rabinowitz's work has appeared widely in such journals as Atlantic Monthly, Boston Review, The Paris Review, Colorado Review, Southwest Review, Denver Quarterly, Sulfur, LIT, VOLT, and Doubletake. Her work has also appeared in the anthologies, The Best American Poetry 1989, edited by Donald Hall, Life on the Line: Selections on Words and Healing, and in The KGB Bar Reader. She edits and publishes the nationally distributed literary journal, American Letters & Commentary, and is a vice-president of the Poetry Society of America.

Anna Rabinowitz's most recent volume of poetry is The Wanton Sublime: A Florilegium of Whethers and Wonders (Tupelo Press, 2006). Her book-length acrostic poem, Darkling: A Poem, also available from Tupelo Press, has been adapted into an experimental, multi-media music theater work by American Opera Projects and had a limited run from February 26 through March 18, 2006 at the 13th Street Theatre, NYC, with a gala opening night on February 28, 2006. Excerpts from this theater work, along with panel discussions, were presented at the Guggenheim Museum in November, 2005. Rabinowitz's other books include At the Site of Inside Out, which won the Juniper Prize.

Reviews

The editor of American Letters and Commentary, Rabinowitz investigates the mysteries, myths and cultural accretions around the Virgin Mary in this third collection; Mary becomes, in these rapt and provocative poems, both a symbol of ecstatic transcendence and a focus for questions about gender and power. Drawing eclectically on forms from rhyming quatrains to e. e. cummingsesque typography, Rabinowitz reimagines the Annunciation as a "Manysplendoredmoonmottledmarvel of the metaphysical," presenting a Virgin "entrapped/ and captive," "disarmed/ by angels/ a heart unarmed/ in evernow," insisting in dramatic capitals that angelic "LIGHT NEED NOT BE EXPLAINED." She places Mary in a tradition of mystics from Pythagoras and Greek myths to Catholic saints, leavening her paeans and chants with references to skeptics such as Michel de Montaigne. Rabinowitz's technique can be extravagant, but it may be the only way to do justice to the extreme emotions and ambitions she describes: "And with her YES a future world takes shape." (Mar.)
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Following her acclaimed book-length poem, Darkling (2001), this innovative examination of the Annunciation uses a collagelike, fractured narrative to explore the complex possibilities within the sacred story. Florilegium refers to "a collection of excerpts from written texts" and, in Latin, relates to flower gathering. The poems do form a "bouquet," plucked from varying sources of truths, lies, and artistic inquisition. Rabinowitz is a highly intellectual poet with unique vision and a distinct voice. She knows the rules of poetry and breaks them beautifully, bending words and forms to her purpose. Some poems seem a tad gimmicky as they follow linguistic/mental association, but others succeed in lending a lightheartedness that demonstrates that Rabinowitz does not take herself too seriously. This does not, however, lessen her respect for her subject matter, or for her role as translator of thought or "vessel through which the music passes" (as Stravinsky called himself). Some readers will find Rabinowitz challenging, but all will be sent on a journey into fresh poetic and philosophical territory. Janet St. John
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: Tupelo Press
• Publication date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1932195394
• ISBN 13: 9781932195392
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 94