An Octave Above Thunder: New and Selected Poems - Softcover

Muske, Carol

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140587942 ISBN 13: 9780140587944

Publisher: Penguin Books, 1997

Synopsis

An Octave Above Thunder presents a collection of poems spanning more than twenty years in the career of Carol Muske, who has won acclaim for work which marries sophisticated intelligence, emotional resonance, and technical craft. What most distinguishes Carol Muske's poetry is her awareness of the complicated web into which the personal and the political, the familial and the feminist, are woven. Filled with audible contemplation—invocation, echo, dreamsong, dirge—Muske's lyrical precision, assured touch, and exacting clarity make her one of the most talented poets of her generation.

About this title

About the Author

Carol Muske is the author of five collections of poetry and two novels, Dear Digby and Saving St. Germ. She is the recipient of numerous awards for her poetry, including Guggenheim, NEA, and Ingram-Merrill fellowships. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and daughter.

Reviews

In the polite, cocktail-party din of much American poetry at the end of the century, it could be easy to miss Muske. Like the work of many (some would say too many) accomplished contemporaries, hers is intelligent, observant, introspective, urbanely wry, and attentive to craft. This collection of ten new poems plus selections from her previous five books?including the well-received Red Trousseau (LJ 2/1/93)?reveals an expanding poetic consciousness, from 1970s Surrealism Lite ("I sit blowing ghosts into my wrists"), through feminism and political awareness ("Now we/ can't afford to be anonymous."), to self-analysis and ambitious meditation ("An Octave Above Thunder"). Muske often starts with an experience in the physical world, working inward to the psyche, the abstract dream state from which startling awareness or revelation might be expected to emerge, but through "page after page/ of Pictures in the Mind" the poems somehow escape a final solidity ("The sky fills with invisible comets."), despite their sometimes trenchant tone and carefully wrought gravity. For larger poetry collections?Fred Muratori, Cornell Univ. Lib., Ithaca, N.Y.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Penguin Books
• Publication date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0140587942
• ISBN 13: 9780140587944
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 224