Sue Burton's Box is a book we need: brave, bold, inventive, magical. Deftly braiding personal and political, social history and contemporary concerns, the factual and the fantastical, Box illuminates what it means to be she who is sawn in half and she who steps out of that box to confront the mayhem where, indeed, " some fanatic is packing a gun." Along with Burton's keen ear for the music and muscle of the poem, there's tenderness, passion, transcendence, humor, and dead-on serious intent. As she writes, "the Magic ...
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Sue Burton's Box is a book we need: brave, bold, inventive, magical. Deftly braiding personal and political, social history and contemporary concerns, the factual and the fantastical, Box illuminates what it means to be she who is sawn in half and she who steps out of that box to confront the mayhem where, indeed, " some fanatic is packing a gun." Along with Burton's keen ear for the music and muscle of the poem, there's tenderness, passion, transcendence, humor, and dead-on serious intent. As she writes, "the Magic of course, I always say, is not/ in being sawn in half, but in rebirth/ Climbing back onstage night after night..." These poems show us that magic, of climbing back on stage here in "America, in fine fettle/while the fields burn." At the end of "A Matter of the Soul" Burton asks, "Do I dare write this poem?" Thankfully yes, she did write the poem--these poems, this brilliant new book. -- Carol Potter Let's just get this part out of the way, Sue Burton's Box is a brilliant, imperative, masterful collection. I envy this book; I covet and adore it. It is a book of the body and the soul, of the body as a trap for the soul, and the box--from the magician's box, where the body is sawn in half, to the coffin--as a trap for the (female) body. It is a book of mirth and snark--with all-caps titles like "WHY I'M NOT COMING TO MY FUNERAL," "MY NARRATIVE BENT IS BENT ON TELLING A STORY," and "OVER AT THE SHIVA PIANO LOUNGE THE WOMAN WHO WAS SAWN IN HALF IS DRINKING A HIPSTER VARIANT (GREEN CHARTREUSE AND GIN) OF LYDIA E. PINKHAM'S 1876 ORIGINAL VEGETABLE COMPOUND"--and deadly serious intent. If the box is its defining metaphor, and the sawed-in-half-woman its central archetype, then its thematic axis is abortion, legal, illegal, botched, and died-for. Burton's source material is the dovetailing of the holy quartet: public history, political history, family history, and apparently personal history. But this is poetry, not polemic. Its bottom line is the possibility of language within and beyond the borders of its ideas. Along with being badass and defiant and imaginative as hell, the book is formally-astute and deeply literary. There is a villanelle. There are sonnets, including a prose sonnet sequence in which each poem is shaped like--you guessed it--a box. And there is Hopkins, Dickinson, Marianne Moore, and Adrienne Rich canoodling in the same collection with a girl named Ruby, a sprite, "dressed like a man dressed like a goat...down there in the dark like Nijinsky's faun, in a cream-colored body suit, little goat horns that nobody could see, bobby-pinned in hair that nobody could see, red-streaked and kinked." It's all here--story, song, and figuration, insurgence, sorrow, and love. "Once a woman sawn in half, always./Though it's all in the eye--yours--the beholder," she writes. I beheld. I urge you, too, to behold. -- Diane Seuss (Contest Judge)
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Add this copy of Box to cart. $14.00, new condition, Sold by Books2anywhere rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Fairford, GLOUCESTERSHIRE, UNITED KINGDOM, published 2018 by Two Sylvias Press.
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PLEASE NOTE, WE DO NOT SHIP TO DENMARK. New Book. Shipped from UK in 4 to 14 days. Established seller since 2000. Please note we cannot offer an expedited shipping service from the UK.
Add this copy of Box to cart. $11.07, like new condition, Sold by GreatBookPricesUK5 rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Castle Donington, DERBYSHIRE, UNITED KINGDOM, published 2018 by Two Sylvias Press.
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Fine. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 86 p. Contains: Illustrations, black & white. In Stock. 100% Money Back Guarantee. Brand New, Perfect Condition, allow 4-14 business days for standard shipping. To Alaska, Hawaii, U.S. protectorate, P.O. box, and APO/FPO addresses allow 4-28 business days for Standard shipping. No expedited shipping. All orders placed with expedited shipping will be cancelled. Over 3, 000, 000 happy customers.
Add this copy of Box to cart. $14.21, new condition, Sold by GreatBookPricesUK5 rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Castle Donington, DERBYSHIRE, UNITED KINGDOM, published 2018 by Two Sylvias Press.
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New. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 86 p. Contains: Illustrations, black & white. In Stock. 100% Money Back Guarantee. Brand New, Perfect Condition, allow 4-14 business days for standard shipping. To Alaska, Hawaii, U.S. protectorate, P.O. box, and APO/FPO addresses allow 4-28 business days for Standard shipping. No expedited shipping. All orders placed with expedited shipping will be cancelled. Over 3, 000, 000 happy customers.
Add this copy of Box to cart. $17.65, new condition, Sold by Booksplease rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Southport, MERSEYSIDE, UNITED KINGDOM, published 2018 by Two Sylvias Press.
Add this copy of Box to cart. $15.27, new condition, Sold by Paperbackshop International rated 2.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Fairford, GLOS, UNITED KINGDOM, published 2018 by Two Sylvias Press.
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PLEASE NOTE, WE DO NOT SHIP TO DENMARK. New Book. Shipped from UK in 4 to 14 days. Established seller since 2000. Please note we cannot offer an expedited shipping service from the UK.
Add this copy of Box to cart. $20.32, new condition, Sold by Ingram Customer Returns Center rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from NV, USA, published 2018 by Two Sylvias Press.
Add this copy of Box to cart. $10.14, very good condition, Sold by ThriftBooks-Baltimore rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Halethorpe, MD, UNITED STATES, published 2018 by Two Sylvias Press.
Add this copy of Box to cart. $12.07, good condition, Sold by BooksRun rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Philadelphia, PA, UNITED STATES, published 2018 by Two Sylvias Press.
