Description
Book SynopsisTess Gallagher’s new poems are suspended between contradiction and beauty. Is, Is Not upends our notions of linear time, evokes the spirit and sanctity of place, and journeys toward discovering the full capacity of language. Gallagher’s poems reverberate with the inward clarity of a bell struck on a mountaintop and hover daringly at the threshold of what language can nearly deliver while offering alternative corollaries as gifts of its failures. Guided by humour, grace, and a deep inquiry into the natural world, every poem nudges us toward moments of awe. How else except by delight and velocity would we discover the miracle within the ordinary? Gallagher claims many Wests – the Northwest of America, the north-west of Ireland, and a West even further to the edge, beyond the physical. These landscapes are charged with invisible energies and inhabited by the people, living and dead, who shape Gallagher’s poems and life. Restorative in every sense, Is, Is Not is the kind of book that takes a lifetime to write – a book of the spirit made manifest by the poet’s unrelenting gaze and her intimate engagement with the mysteries that keep us reaching.
Trade Review'The book itself is dedicated to two great loves (the American writer Raymond Carver, and the Irish painter and storyteller, Josie Gray) and its narratives echo through time... Beneath all the places, stories and loves, this poet finds that deep resonance of common essence. There is beauty and grief and humour here; there is a gentle wisdom; there is a quiet, incremental insight that sings us awake. I treasure these poems.' - Jane Mead
Table of ContentsRecognition 1 i In the Company of Flowers 5 Almost Lost Moment 6 Ambition 7 Your Dog Playing with a Coyote 9 Ability to Hold Territory 10 Blind Dog/Seeing Girl 12 Doe Browsing Salal Berries 14 ii Little Inside Out Dream, 17 Dream Cancel 19 Stolen Dress 21 Glass Impresses 23 Hummingbird-Mind 25 One Deer at Dusk 26 iii Correction 31 Sully 33 Retroactive Father 36 Earth 38 The Seemingly Domesticated 39 Reaching 41 Right-Minded Person 44 In the Too-Bright Café 45 iv Let’s Store These Hours 51 Season of Burnt-Out Candelabras 53 The Branches of the Maple 56 Yet to Be Born Weather 57 I Want to Be Loved Like Somebody’s Beloved Dog in America 59 While I Was Away 63 v Without 67 Deer Path Enigma 69 The Favorite Cup 70 What Does It Say 71 vi Bus to Belfast 75 Is, Is Not 76 As the Diamond 78 During the Montenegrin Poetry Reading 81 Curfew 83 Eddie’s Steps 84 Four-Footed 86 The Gold Dust of the Linden Trees 88 Blue Eyelid Lifting 91 vii Button, Button 95 Breath 99 To an Irishman Painting in the Rain 100 Encounter 102 Planet Greece 103 Cloud-Path 105 viii Oliver 109 A “Sit” with Eileen 112 Remembering Each Other While Together 115 Opening 117 Word of Mouth 118 Daylong Visitor Caress 123 March Moon Three Stars 125 Afterword: Writing from the Edge: A Poet of Two Northwests 127 Notes 135 Acknowledgments 139
