{"product_id":"catechesis-a-postpastoral-9781607816973","title":"Catechesis: A Postpastoral","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWinner of the 2018 Agha Shahid Ali Prize in Poetry\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"\"A girl has two choices: \/ to be a tree or \/ to be the forest.\"\" \u003ci\u003eCatechesis\u003c\/i\u003e combines Grimm fairy tales with horror movies and the Book of Revelation to construct a vision of the dangers and apocalyptic transformations inherent in girlhood. This lyric lore, which includes curious diagrams and collages of the botanical and the anatomical, contains hidden instructions to prepare girls for the hazards ahead.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn retelling lore alongside other Grimm-style stories, the poet turns horror classics \u003ci\u003eThe Silence of the Lambs\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eAlien\u003c\/i\u003e into macabre fairy tales in their own right. Herein lurks violence and decay, but also a wild, overgrown beauty. Mothers and fathers are as much a part of this treacherous landscape as the carnivorous flora and shape-shifting fauna—and their effects are just as devastating. Framing all of this within biblical language and motifs gives these fabulist poems an ominous sense of urgency. \u003ci\u003eCatechesis\u003c\/i\u003e is a hybrid collection of textual and visual poems that examine belief and obsession. It explores how beauty leads to danger and danger births another kind of beauty, in a cycle of creation and destruction.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Lusby's shivery sequence strews a trail of gems through fairy tale's shadiest, most iconic location—the Forest. We meet our heroine in very unfortunate medias res—under the axe—but which way will fortune tilt? As each lyric spills its elixir, a swarm of dialogue and diagrams, allusions and images cluster like corpse-fauna, rise. \u003ci\u003eCatechesis\u003c\/i\u003e reminds us that every occult canon, every sweet herbarium is a library of poisons, and invites us to drink deep.\"\u003cbr\u003e —Joyelle McSweeney, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Red Bird\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eThe Commandrine and Other Poems\u003c\/i\u003e “Both raw and beautiful in its rendering of terrors, \u003ci\u003eCatechesis\u003c\/i\u003e reforms moments of gendered violence into moments of transformation, in a dynamic illustration of Adrienne Rich’s feminist tenet that ‘her wounds came from the same source as her power.’ Lusby’s language is like the ‘flint-strike of tooth on light,’ and this book is ‘such lungspan, \/ such bright palpitation’ from beginning to end.”\u003cbr\u003e —Sara Eliza Johnson, author of \u003ci\u003eBone Map\u003c\/i\u003e \"Lindsay Lusby takes fairytales and horror movies and twists these stories into utterly new creations. Here the Brothers' Grimm 'Maiden without Hands' is a girl who elusively 'prefers to imagine herself a bird' and asserts 'An unhanded bird \/ is still a bird, \/ is still worth its weight in breadcrumbs.' Time and again Lusby splinters off from language’s predictable paths: 'If a felled girl falls in a forest, \/ does it sound \/\/ inevitable?' In her collages, as in her poems, there are no barriers between humans, animals, and their environment, which results in eerie butterflies with bones and plants sprouting tooth-blossoms.\"\u003cbr\u003e —Matthea Harvey, author of \u003ci\u003eIf the Tabloids Are True What Are You?\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e   “I find myself so deeply impressed by this book, that I’m a bit speechless. Lusby’s work is both gruesome and lovely. It’s like following a butterfly off of a cliff and then just staring up at the sky as you confront the grim reality that you’re falling to your death. The raw horror and beauty of the pieces of \u003ci\u003eCatechesis\u003c\/i\u003e are heartrending. This is one of the best poetry books that I’ve read, ever.”\u003cbr\u003e —Jessica Drake-Thomas, \u003ci\u003eThis Week I Read.com\u003c\/i\u003e","brand":"University of Utah Press,U.S.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51041646379351,"sku":"9781607816973","price":14.36,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9781607816973.jpg?v=1750951133","url":"https:\/\/bookcurl.com\/products\/catechesis-a-postpastoral-9781607816973","provider":"Book Curl","version":"1.0","type":"link"}