{"product_id":"letter-from-a-place-ive-never-been-9781496226822","title":"Letter from a Place Ive Never Been","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWith empathy and compassion, Hilda Raz writes poems that span her private and public lives. Her poems explore the complexities that come with being alive in the world today.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Early on in \u003ci\u003eLetter from a Place I’ve Never Been,\u003c\/i\u003e a speaker worries, ‘What if I’m broken and can’t be mended, \/ or worse, the world is broken around me \/ and I the only whole thing in it?’ Here is the Jewish notion of \u003ci\u003etikkun olam, \u003c\/i\u003ethat it’s our task to repair what is wounded. Indeed, in this impressive collection showcasing more than thirty years of work, Hilda Raz makes an argument for poetry as a way of healing our brokenness. These are poems that remake the world of ‘melt and fracture’—using language that growls from the page—so that it belongs to everyone, all the ‘odd and splendid’ parts of ourselves worthy of examination, of praise.”—Jehanne Dubrow, author of \u003ci\u003eDots \u0026amp; Dashes\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eThe Arranged Marriage\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“I love the immersive experience this book offers. Readers track Raz’s imaginative language across the decades, as she mourns and meditates, catalogs and investigates. Resisting the cultural and technological policing of women’s bodies, the poet evokes illness, recovery, sorrow, and delight. These narrators—gritty, world-loving, tenacious—bind the personal and political in unforgettable family and diasporic narratives. Unprecedented when first published, Raz’s poems about mothering her transgender child have become foundational texts. ‘Some of what I couldn’t stand to lose I lost,’ a narrator states, echoing Elizabeth Bishop, one influence here. Friendship and the natural world console: ‘If the good life is coming \/ to us in our lifetime, \/ surely it is here \/ in this orchard in April at twilight.’ Like her jeweler son’s transformation of wire and gemstone into bracelet and earrings, Raz’s transformations—of body, circumstance, homeplace, passion—work a resilient, wondrous alchemy.”—Robin Becker, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Black Bear Inside Me  \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“To read Hilda Raz’s \u003ci\u003eLetter from a Place I’ve Never Been\u003c\/i\u003e is to open a precious gift, to sit down to a feast celebrating a life in poetry. If you’ve read Raz’s earlier work, the poems will be old friends, made new by seeing them in this expansive context. If you have not, you have a journey ahead worth any price, let alone the price of a book. Raz’s poems deal with grief, longing, and loss in all their complicated forms but interwoven with transformations that take your breath away. Her poems are in turns lyrical and challenging, but always precise, each word exactly the right word. And at the end of \u003ci\u003eLetter from a Place I’ve Never Been,\u003c\/i\u003e there are the new poems waiting to be discovered and savored, poems which, to quote a title in the book, serve as ‘Letters from a Lost Language,’ that haunting, that beautiful.”—Jesse Lee Kercheval, author of \u003ci\u003eAmerica that island off the coast of France\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTable of Contents\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEditor’s Note by Kwame Dawes    \u003cbr\u003e Introduction by John Kinsella    \u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eWhat Is Good\u003c\/i\u003e (1988)\u003cbr\u003e I\u003cbr\u003e She Speaks    \u003cbr\u003e Yom Kippur    \u003cbr\u003e Father    \u003cbr\u003e Shabbos    \u003cbr\u003e Dishes    \u003cbr\u003e Accident    \u003cbr\u003e Piecing    \u003cbr\u003e Saying Goodbye to the Property    \u003cbr\u003e What Is Good    \u003cbr\u003e II\u003cbr\u003e Family    \u003cbr\u003e Worry about Meaning    \u003cbr\u003e Helios at Bread Loaf, the Album    \u003cbr\u003e With Stanley Kunitz at the Car Wash    \u003cbr\u003e The Man    \u003cbr\u003e Women Raised in the Fifties    \u003cbr\u003e Shame, or the Computer Uses of Natural Language    \u003cbr\u003e Assignment    \u003cbr\u003e Three Ways of Looking at It    \u003cbr\u003e Trying to Buy off Death    \u003cbr\u003e Lacunae    \u003cbr\u003e III\u003cbr\u003e What Happened This Summer    \u003cbr\u003e Divorce    \u003cbr\u003e Detail    \u003cbr\u003e 1 September, 100 Degrees    \u003cbr\u003e Journal Entry: The Tropics    \u003cbr\u003e A Meeting with My Ex-Husband    \u003cbr\u003e Version    \u003cbr\u003e Pain    \u003cbr\u003e Small Shelter    \u003cbr\u003e High Ground    \u003cbr\u003e IV\u003cbr\u003e Some Other Women Now    \u003cbr\u003e Plate xii    \u003cbr\u003e Widow    \u003cbr\u003e Lot’s Wives    \u003cbr\u003e Gossip    \u003cbr\u003e She    \u003cbr\u003e Oracle    \u003cbr\u003e Pregnant Woman    \u003cbr\u003e Visitant    \u003cbr\u003e Cradle    \u003cbr\u003e I Am Sick    \u003cbr\u003e Visions    \u003cbr\u003e V\u003cbr\u003e Jan’s Orchard, Nebraska    \u003cbr\u003e Locus    \u003cbr\u003e Sex    \u003cbr\u003e Alone    \u003cbr\u003e Late March    \u003cbr\u003e Look    \u003cbr\u003e Piecing the Universe Together with Dresses    \u003cbr\u003e Friend in a Distant City    \u003cbr\u003e Advice    \u003cbr\u003e I Can’t. Yes, You Can.     \u003cbr\u003e C3    \u003cbr\u003e Prospectus    \u003cbr\u003e Life Outside the Self: The Uncertainty Principle    \u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Bone Dish\u003c\/i\u003e (1989)\u003cbr\u003e That’s Something    \u003cbr\u003e Sarah’s Wing    \u003cbr\u003e April Teaching, Outstate Nebraska    \u003cbr\u003e Diction    \u003cbr\u003e Native    \u003cbr\u003e Words    \u003cbr\u003e Birthday    \u003cbr\u003e November Night Driving    \u003cbr\u003e Town\/ County    \u003cbr\u003e Bear    \u003cbr\u003e The Sandhills, Early Winter    \u003cbr\u003e Conversation    \u003cbr\u003e Photograph of a Child Sleeping    \u003cbr\u003e What Happens    \u003cbr\u003e My Daughter Home from College Tells Me about the Gods    \u003cbr\u003e Ambition    \u003cbr\u003e September: Getting Married Again    \u003cbr\u003e My Dream, Your Dream    \u003cbr\u003e Inside the Geese    \u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eDivine Honors\u003c\/i\u003e (1997)\u003cbr\u003e Prologue\u003cbr\u003e Repair    \u003cbr\u003e Narrative without People    \u003cbr\u003e Let’s consider the consequences    \u003cbr\u003e Isaac Stern’s Performance    \u003cbr\u003e I\u003cbr\u003e I Hear the Name of the Moon and Am Afraid    \u003cbr\u003e Weathering\/ boundaries\/ what is good    \u003cbr\u003e To Explain    \u003cbr\u003e Mu    \u003cbr\u003e Coming Down with Something    \u003cbr\u003e Fish-Belly-Mound    \u003cbr\u003e “Two Are Better Than One”*    \u003cbr\u003e Getting Well    \u003cbr\u003e For Barbara, Who Brings a Green Stone in the Shape of a Triangle    \u003cbr\u003e Day-Old Bargain    \u003cbr\u003e Breast\/ fever    \u003cbr\u003e II\u003cbr\u003e Sarah’s Response    \u003cbr\u003e Sarah among Animals    \u003cbr\u003e Sarah’s Head\/ 16 March, Four Months after Surgery    \u003cbr\u003e Sarah Fledging    \u003cbr\u003e Sarah’s Waltz    \u003cbr\u003e Balance    \u003cbr\u003e Order    \u003cbr\u003e Axe-earrings, abalone shell    \u003cbr\u003e Birth    \u003cbr\u003e III\u003cbr\u003e Opening\/ Working\/ Walking    \u003cbr\u003e Hey You    \u003cbr\u003e Grieving, she hits the red fox    \u003cbr\u003e Mapping\/ Bleating    \u003cbr\u003e Trope    \u003cbr\u003e Sow Sister    \u003cbr\u003e Bernini’s Ribbon    \u003cbr\u003e Petting the Scar    \u003cbr\u003e Teaching, Hurt    \u003cbr\u003e Riddle    \u003cbr\u003e IV\u003cbr\u003e Chigger Socks    \u003cbr\u003e Daylight Savings: Sandy Creek, Nebraska    \u003cbr\u003e Cobb’s Hill Pond    \u003cbr\u003e Fuss    \u003cbr\u003e Zen: the one I love most holds my tongue    \u003cbr\u003e Camarada    \u003cbr\u003e From Your Mouth to God’s Ear    \u003cbr\u003e “We don’t deserve what we get”     \u003cbr\u003e G: But it’s still not all right with you?     \u003cbr\u003e Mutation Blues    \u003cbr\u003e Insomnia Again    \u003cbr\u003e Service    \u003cbr\u003e V\u003cbr\u003e Hot    \u003cbr\u003e Dying    \u003cbr\u003e Terror: A Riddle    \u003cbr\u003e Nuts    \u003cbr\u003e Lincoln, Nebraska    \u003cbr\u003e Letter of Transmittal    \u003cbr\u003e Now    \u003cbr\u003e Who Does She Think She Is    \u003cbr\u003e Earlier    \u003cbr\u003e Vowels    \u003cbr\u003e Epilogue\u003cbr\u003e Gloxinia\/ Flicker\/ Oxalis    \u003cbr\u003e Recovery    \u003cbr\u003e My Award\/ The Jews of Lukow    \u003cbr\u003e Ecstasies    \u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eTrans \u003c\/i\u003e(2001)\u003cbr\u003e I\u003cbr\u003e Avoidance    \u003cbr\u003e What Do You Want?     \u003cbr\u003e Drought: Teaching, Benedict, Nebraska    \u003cbr\u003e Tough    \u003cbr\u003e Names My Mother Knew    \u003cbr\u003e Houses    \u003cbr\u003e Said to Sarah, Ten    \u003cbr\u003e Fast Car on Nebraska I-80: Visiting Teacher    \u003cbr\u003e Afternoon, with Cold    \u003cbr\u003e Sick    \u003cbr\u003e Back    \u003cbr\u003e Friday    \u003cbr\u003e “The world is not something to look at; it is something to be in.”     \u003cbr\u003e II\u003cbr\u003e Secrets    \u003cbr\u003e Heart Transplant    \u003cbr\u003e Footnotes    \u003cbr\u003e Doing the Puzzle\/ Angry Voices    \u003cbr\u003e Prelude    \u003cbr\u003e Part Coquette, Part Monster    \u003cbr\u003e Trans    \u003cbr\u003e Trans formation\/ Feathers\/ Train Travel    \u003cbr\u003e Stone    \u003cbr\u003e Before John and Maria’s Wedding    \u003cbr\u003e III\u003cbr\u003e Historical Documents    \u003cbr\u003e Volunteers    \u003cbr\u003e Some Questions about the Storm    \u003cbr\u003e Lost Jewelry    \u003cbr\u003e Mother-in-Law    \u003cbr\u003e Women \u0026amp; Men    \u003cbr\u003e Some Questions for the Evening Class    \u003cbr\u003e Insomnia III    \u003cbr\u003e She    \u003cbr\u003e Letter from a Place I’ve Never Been    \u003cbr\u003e Not Now    \u003cbr\u003e Summer    \u003cbr\u003e Anna Maria Is Coming, or Maybe Thomas Barton, or Max!     \u003cbr\u003e IV\u003cbr\u003e Hello    \u003cbr\u003e The Address on the Map    \u003cbr\u003e Wonder Woman’s Rules of the Road    \u003cbr\u003e Aaron at Work\/ Rain    \u003cbr\u003e Sarah Returned to Me, Wearing the Poet’s Gloves    \u003cbr\u003e Company\/ 3 AM     \u003cbr\u003e First, Thus    \u003cbr\u003e The Storehouse    \u003cbr\u003e Early Morning, Left-Handed    \u003cbr\u003e Visitation: Pink Foam Letter    \u003cbr\u003e The Funeral of X, Who Was Y’s Mother    \u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eAll Odd and Splendid\u003c\/i\u003e (2008)\u003cbr\u003e I. History: Everyone today looked remarkable\u003cbr\u003e Vocation    \u003cbr\u003e Diaspora    \u003cbr\u003e Childhood    \u003cbr\u003e Water Ceremonies    \u003cbr\u003e All Odd and Splendid    \u003cbr\u003e Wilt    \u003cbr\u003e Son    \u003cbr\u003e He Graduates from Clown School    \u003cbr\u003e He\/ She: The Bike    \u003cbr\u003e Credo    \u003cbr\u003e Spring Snowstorm    \u003cbr\u003e Dante’s Words    \u003cbr\u003e Sunday Morning, without Couplet    \u003cbr\u003e Tyr    \u003cbr\u003e II. The Transfer of Power: So absolute and immutable\u003cbr\u003e Once    \u003cbr\u003e Storm    \u003cbr\u003e The Transfer of Power    \u003cbr\u003e An Evening    \u003cbr\u003e Infant, in New York    \u003cbr\u003e Visit    \u003cbr\u003e Four\/ Two    \u003cbr\u003e Eva Unwraps a Band-Aid    \u003cbr\u003e III. War: Button, feather, tassel or stripe\u003cbr\u003e Complaint    \u003cbr\u003e Flight    \u003cbr\u003e The Public Baths    \u003cbr\u003e Pets    \u003cbr\u003e September 11    \u003cbr\u003e Fire Should Be Measured by What Didn’t Burn    \u003cbr\u003e Paper Strip    \u003cbr\u003e IV. Seeing the Changes\u003cbr\u003e Arousal    \u003cbr\u003e Coma    \u003cbr\u003e A Friend    \u003cbr\u003e Her Dream    \u003cbr\u003e Objects When the Body Fails    \u003cbr\u003e Beloved, 24    \u003cbr\u003e Funeral, then Flu    \u003cbr\u003e Suite    \u003cbr\u003e The Changes    \u003cbr\u003e A Body of Water    \u003cbr\u003e Elegy for Two Poets    \u003cbr\u003e V. The Especial Shape\u003cbr\u003e 2 AM Migraine    \u003cbr\u003e Moving Pictures    \u003cbr\u003e Dark Haired, Dark Eyed, Fierce    \u003cbr\u003e Professional Travel    \u003cbr\u003e Alice    \u003cbr\u003e VI. All Odd and Splendid\u003cbr\u003e Terza Rima    \u003cbr\u003e Now    \u003cbr\u003e Tenor Part    \u003cbr\u003e Splendid    \u003cbr\u003e Love This    \u003cbr\u003e Thank You Very Much    \u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eList \u0026amp; Story\u003c\/i\u003e (2020)\u003cbr\u003e I\u003cbr\u003e Autobiography    \u003cbr\u003e The Spa of the Three Widows    \u003cbr\u003e Transportation    \u003cbr\u003e Home    \u003cbr\u003e Go    \u003cbr\u003e Late September    \u003cbr\u003e Photograph    \u003cbr\u003e Here we go alone, and like it better so    \u003cbr\u003e Flowers of Immortality    \u003cbr\u003e II\u003cbr\u003e Women and Poetry    \u003cbr\u003e Women’s Lib    \u003cbr\u003e Collaboration    \u003cbr\u003e Women and the Global Imagination    \u003cbr\u003e The Burnt Journals    \u003cbr\u003e Dear Sky    \u003cbr\u003e April    \u003cbr\u003e One Toe, Crooked    \u003cbr\u003e List and Story    \u003cbr\u003e Six Objects in a Gold Foil Box    \u003cbr\u003e War    \u003cbr\u003e A Covey of Scaled Quail    \u003cbr\u003e Another Story    \u003cbr\u003e III\u003cbr\u003e The Impossibility of Stasis    \u003cbr\u003e The Past and the Future    \u003cbr\u003e Watching Bulls\/ Falling in Love with the Dead    \u003cbr\u003e A Conversation about Text    \u003cbr\u003e Emma     \u003cbr\u003e IV\u003cbr\u003e Nick Spencer, Two Days Dead    \u003cbr\u003e The da Vinci Moon    \u003cbr\u003e A Meditation on Respect    \u003cbr\u003e Meditation    \u003cbr\u003e The Mandala of Now    \u003cbr\u003e A Symposium on Love    \u003cbr\u003e Pristine    \u003cbr\u003e The Sisters    \u003cbr\u003e Talking to each other    \u003cbr\u003e First Light    \u003cbr\u003e Seasons    \u003cbr\u003e Letters from a Lost Language    \u003cbr\u003e Published and Uncollected Poems (1975–2019)\u003cbr\u003e Writing Big    \u003cbr\u003e Fiction    \u003cbr\u003e Long Night    \u003cbr\u003e 2 AM, after Dental Surgery    \u003cbr\u003e Graffiti    \u003cbr\u003e Every Way    \u003cbr\u003e Spring Again, Rural Nebraska    \u003cbr\u003e Lost Glasses    \u003cbr\u003e Anna Bites Her Friend Emma at Preschool    \u003cbr\u003e Round\/ Square    \u003cbr\u003e Dwell\/ April    \u003cbr\u003e Fragments    \u003cbr\u003e Birthday, Red-Tailed Hawk    \u003cbr\u003e Blackberries    \u003cbr\u003e Up All Night    \u003cbr\u003e Abecedarian II    \u003cbr\u003e A Story from Mah-Jongg Club    \u003cbr\u003e The City of Suffering    \u003cbr\u003e Another Story    \u003cbr\u003e New Poems (2020)\u003cbr\u003e Dear God,     \u003cbr\u003e Arms\/ Belief    \u003cbr\u003e Beloveds    \u003cbr\u003e Clothes    \u003cbr\u003e Echo    \u003cbr\u003e Formal    \u003cbr\u003e Seasonal    \u003cbr\u003e Looking out the Window, Accordion Polka Accompaniment    \u003cbr\u003e Picked up in the Garden, with a Line from Mary Oliver    \u003cbr\u003e Eva Sings    \u003cbr\u003e Risk    \u003cbr\u003e After the Memoir, Revelations    \u003cbr\u003e “Nobody Teaches Life Anything”    \u003cbr\u003e Policy Discussion, Therapy    \u003cbr\u003e A Life    \u003cbr\u003e Sentences    \u003cbr\u003e The Truth    \u003cbr\u003e A Wedding    \u003cbr\u003e Credo 23    \u003cbr\u003e Failure    \u003cbr\u003e Fort Pond    \u003cbr\u003e Victory Garden, Grass Skirt    \u003cbr\u003e Acknowledgments    \u003cbr\u003e Notes    ","brand":"University of Nebraska Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49409236500823,"sku":"9781496226822","price":21.59,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9781496226822.jpg?v=1730506087","url":"https:\/\/bookcurl.com\/products\/letter-from-a-place-ive-never-been-9781496226822","provider":"Book Curl","version":"1.0","type":"link"}