Solutions for the Problem of Bodies in Space: Poems

Barnett, Catherine

ISBN 10: 1644452871 / ISBN 13: 9781644452875

Published by Graywolf Press, 2024

About this Item

88pp., a Near Fine condition.

Seller Inventory # 642328

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Solutions for the Problem of Bodies in Space: Poems
• Publisher: Graywolf Press
• Publication Date: 2024
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1644452871
• ISBN 13: 9781644452875
• Binding: Trade Paperback
• Edition: First Edition.
• Condition: Near Fine
• Seller catalogs:
  • Poetry

About this title

Synopsis

The loneliness that collects in mirrors and faces―at bedside vigils and in city streets―quickens Catherine Barnett’s metaphysical poems, which are like speculative prescriptions for this common human experience. Here loneliness is filled with belonging, which is in turn filled with loneliness, each state suffused and emptied by the other. Barnett’s fourth collection is part manifesto, part how-to manual, part apologia: a guide to the homeopathic dangers and healing powers of an emotion so charged with eros, humor, and elusive beauty it becomes a companion both desired and eschewed, necessary and illuminating.

Solutions for the Problem of Bodies in Space is never far from grief or a comedy of bewilderment, inadequacy, hope. Entering Barnett’s world is a little like entering an electrically charged cloud, and the prospect of either falling or getting caught in a storm brings vertiginous and unpredictable pleasures. Bristling with uncanny intelligence, the poems are sometimes quiet elegies, sometimes meditations on art, love, and the failures of love that so often define love. Barnett might be called a realist―her style is radiantly exact―yet somehow she is a guide both into and out of the existential void. She has written a tender, dazzling collection of estrangement and intimacy.

About the Author

Catherine Barnett is the author of four poetry collections, including Solutions for the Problem of Bodies in Space, Human Hours, winner of the Believer Book Award, and The Game of Boxes, winner of the James Laughlin Award of the Academy of American Poets. She lives in New York City.