Description
Book SynopsisA Pulitzer Prize-winning author details an unconsummated love affair that sustains political, philosophical, and sexual interest over a lifetime. The truth is always different from what anyone says out loud, but who really cares? Not I, said the man I chose to be, nor I nor I nor I— among the many of us she left teetering. Stephen Dunn is a Pulitzer Prize winner and the author of seventeen collections of poetry, most recently Lines of Defense, Here and Now, and What Goes On: Selected & New Poems: 1995-2009. He teaches at Richard Stockton College of New Jersey.
Trade Review"The poetry herethe story here, the dynamic heredoes what no other art form really can. It gives voice (in this case a voice in the plain style) to feeling and mood, to interiority, and the fragile ways we construct relationships out of private desires and public lies
. The theme of naming is
a theme about power, identity, shape-shifting, the fragmented self. All that is here. And all this is good enough reason to cherish this little book, its short glimpse into another's life, which, when rendered in poetry like Dunn's, becomes our life, too." Pleiades
"The poetry here—the story here, the dynamic here—does what no other art form really can. It gives voice (in this case a voice in the plain style) to feeling and mood, to interiority, and the fragile ways we construct relationships out of private desires and public lies…. The theme of naming is…a theme about power, identity, shape-shifting, the fragmented self. All that is here. And all this is good enough reason to cherish this little book, its short glimpse into another's life, which, when rendered in poetry like Dunn's, becomes our life, too." —Pleiades
Table of ContentsRachel Becomes Mrs. Cavendish The Young Mrs. Cavendish Mrs. Cavendish’s Lament Mrs. Cavendish’s Politics Mrs. Cavendish and the Period of Mourning Mrs. Cavendish’s Dog Mrs. Cavendish and the Winter Guide Mrs. Cavendish and the American Dilemma Mrs. Cavendish and the End of Secrecy Mrs. Cavendish and the Dancer Mrs. Cavendish and the General Malaise Mrs. Cavendish’s Dream Mrs. Cavendish and the Outlaw Mrs. Cavendish Speaks Mrs. Cavendish and the Learning Curve Mrs. Cavendish Speaks of the Unforgivable Mrs. Cavendish Returns From Inner Space Mrs. Cavendish Comes to Terms Mrs. Cavendish, Hope, and Other Four Letter Words Mrs. Cavendish and the Beyond Mrs. Cavendish and the Democracy Game Mrs. Cavendish and the Persistence of Desire Mrs. Cavendish and the Keeper of Limits Mrs. Cavendish Becomes the Real Thing Mrs. Cavendish and the Man Left Behind
