The First Night Out of Eden

BATES, Jennifer

ISBN 10: 0813015960 / ISBN 13: 9780813015965

Published by University Press of Florida, Gainesville, FL, 1998

About this Item

First edition. Hardcover. First printing. 65 pages. Bates' first book of poems. A very near fine copy in blue boards. No dust jacket as issued. Much less common in the cloth version.

Seller Inventory # 154870

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The First Night Out of Eden
• Publisher: University Press of Florida, Gainesville, FL
• Publication Date: 1998
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0813015960
• ISBN 13: 9780813015965
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: First Edition.
• Weight: 2.375 pounds
• Seller catalogs:
  • Poetry

About this title

Synopsis

"Jennifer Bates’ inaugural book of poems introduces a skillful young poet who already possesses a distinctive style and a wide range of themes. . . . Her language is taut, tense, and gritty, with many stunning phrases and sharply perceived images. The world of emotional dangers and challenges is seen from a sensual female perspective, and yet, happily, there is no ideological or argumentative edge to her writing; the poems are deeply felt and speak to everyone."--Robert Pack

In this striking first collection Jennifer Bates writes about the nature of womanhood through the story of Eve and the condition of her Fall. Bates shifts between poems which speak though powerful female figures of myth and religious history to poems in a personal, contemporary voice that confront sexual violence, miscarriage, and mental illness.

 Her exploration begins with "The Teresa Poems," in which she enters the life of the 16th-century Spanish mystic St. Teresa of Avila and discovers a movement from health and stability to illness, desolation, and finally resurrection; it continues in "From Fire by Fire," in which an anonymous modern woman recounts her breakdown, madness, and renewal. From the tense mood of impending doom in "Waiting for the Hurricane" to a final acceptance of what life might mean when it's lived with the knowledge of good and evil, in "The Deaf Horses," the poems describe ecstasy, despair, and, finally, the most complicated emotional landscape, ordinary life.

 While writing of this intensity will have special resonance for those who have faced similar experiences, it is also finely crafted poetry that transcends its subject matter and offers healing to everyone "beyond the Garden's walls."
Jennifer Bates, an MFA student at Emerson College, has also written a novel. She lives in Somerville, Massachusetts.

Review

Addictions
All Hallows' Eve
Almost An Elegy
Ash Wednesday
At The Animal Hospital
Between Sisters
The Deaf Horses
Deception
Explanations: Eurydice To Orpheus
The First Night Out Of Eden: 1
The First Night Out Of Eden: 2
From Fire By Fire: 1. The Waiting
From Fire By Fire: 2. Panic
From Fire By Fire: 3. In The Funhouse
From Fire By Fire: 4. The Act
From Fire By Fire: 5. The Choice
Good Friday
Grandiosity
Halo
In The Garden
In The Provisional World
In This New Life
Knowledge
Labyrinth
Life Sentence
Looking For Your Life
Makeup
My Mother's Southern Accent
On The Road To The Cemetery
One Night Stand
Persephone Below, Or What Keeps Her There
The Plight Of Daughters
Revelation
Said The Patient To The Psychiatrist
The Survivor
The Teresa Poems: 1. Entering The New Year
The Teresa Poems: 2. Teresa Succumbs
The Teresa Poems: 3. Convent
The Teresa Poems: 4. The Sentence
The Teresa Poems: 5. Little Lazarus
The Teresa Poems: 6. Ecce Homo
To A Friend Whose Work Has Coome To This
To The North Pole: Louise Boydd
A True War Story
Waiting For The Hurricane
What I Have To Offer
What The Trees Said
Yes To Hats, No To Shoulder Bags
-- Table of Poems from Poem Finder®