Description
Book SynopsisThis collection of poems is an exploration of lives and selves transformed by choice and by chance.
Trade Review“[
All Odd and Splendid] is about how life looks and feels when fundamental categories of being have come unmoored. . . . A life as the mother of a daughter becomes [Raz’s] life as the mother of a son. Rather than mending this rip in the fabric of her existence, Raz magnifies it, turning gender’s failure to stabilize identity into a principle of representation.”—Joy Ladin, the
Forward“‘Why have I come / to arbitrary limits?’ asks Hilda Raz, provocatively, in this stunning . . . collection of poems that tests the generative potential of language and discovers its power to reinvent us. Narratives are stretched, bodies transformed, and deaths defied—all in the miracle that is this poet’s unyielding will to speak truth.”—Raphael Campo, author of
The Enemy“Hilda Raz’s
All Odd and Splendid is unique, accomplished, and turns the ‘genderings’ of the world upside down, as they need be turned upside down. The poems are psychologically innovative and deft. There are tones of a masterpiece in this work.”—John Kinsella, author of
The New Arcadia“[This is] a gentle quotidian view of the world that then twists toward the sardonic/tragic; or else a steady drumbeat of hard life, out of which happiness and beauty flower.”—Janet Burroway, author of
Writing Fiction“The poems evoke a sense of outreach, a powerful awareness of connection and need to care for one another. By example, Raz shows the importance of trying hard to understand others in all their strangeness.”—Floyd Skloot, author of
The End of DreamsTable of ContentsI. History: Everyone today looked remarkable
Vocation
Diaspora
Childhood
Water Ceremonies
All Odd and Splendid
Wilt
Son
He Graduates from Clown School
He/She: The Bike
Credo
Spring Snowstorm
Dante's Words
Sunday Morning, without Couplet
Tyr
II. The Transfer of Power: So absolute and immutable
Once
Storm
The Transfer of Power
An Evening
Infant, in New York
Visit
Four/Two
Eva Unwraps a Bandaid
III. War: Button, feather, tassel or stripe
Complaint
Flight
The Public Baths
Pets
September 11
Fire Should Be Measured by What Didn't Burn
Paper Strip
IV. Seeing the Changes
Arousal
Coma
A Friend
Her Dream
Objects When the Body Fails
Beloved, 24
Funeral, then Flu
Suite
The Changes
A Body of Water
Elegy for Two Poets
V. The Especial Shape
2 A.M. Migraine
Moving Pictures
Dark Haired, Dark Eyed, Fierce
Professional Travel
Alice
VI. All Odd and Splendid
Terza Rima
Now
Tenor Part
Splendid
Love This
Thank You Very Much
Credits and Acknowledgments
