Because the Brain Can Be Talked Into Anything: Poems

Baton Rogue. 1995. Louisiana State University Press. 1st American Edition. Very Good in Dustjacket. 0807119938. 48 pages. hardcover. Jacket illustration: Jack in the Box by Silvia Poloto, 1994. keywords: American Literature Poetry Women Literature. DESCRIPTION - In selecting this dazzling first collection of poems as winner of the 1994 Walt Whitman Award, Robert Pinsky praised Jan Richman for the rowdy, restless intelligence' of her work. Indeed, all of the poems in BECAUSE THE BRAIN CAN BE TALKED INTO ANYTHING are the result of a compulsive, unflinching inquisitiveness - a desire to make some sense of modern life by scrutinizing the paradoxes and contradictions inherent in our world. Richman arranges her poems in two sections. The first, Reasons,' describes the poet's childhood, often harrowing family entanglements, the death of her mother, and her struggle to define herself in relation to her given world. The second section, Excuses,' embraces the freedoms and terrors of adulthood. It explores love and sex, and rattles the boundaries between people in relationships. It questions philosophical ideals such as grace and personal autonomy, and sometimes, as in Grace, overtly mocks them. Ultimately, among the surprising turns of language, the hard edges and twisted aphorisms of an outspoken narrator, the sense of personal history re-emerges as haunting and essential. The book offers no formula for self-knowledge; it winnows and rummages and, finally, finds truth in irony. As in all Richman's poems, the wise-cracking, urban-hip tome gives way to an extremely personal world view, and the raw emotional underpinnings are finally revealed. These poems announce a fresh and powerful new voice. inventory #41149. …