Poetry. Taking her title from the kabbalist creation tale of the clay vessels that had to break so God's light could scatter through the universe, Nordhaus mourns and celebrates a world that comes into being through continuous acts of breakage. She recalls a child who would eat nothing broken, a kewpie doll with a crack that 'spidered across his plaster skull' with blackness trickling from 'the hollow place inside,' conjures a spark of light that 'splashed into the teacup of a skinny Jew named Kafka,' and details the clash ...
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Poetry. Taking her title from the kabbalist creation tale of the clay vessels that had to break so God's light could scatter through the universe, Nordhaus mourns and celebrates a world that comes into being through continuous acts of breakage. She recalls a child who would eat nothing broken, a kewpie doll with a crack that 'spidered across his plaster skull' with blackness trickling from 'the hollow place inside,' conjures a spark of light that 'splashed into the teacup of a skinny Jew named Kafka,' and details the clash between religious and ethnic longings and the realities of violent conflict in a sequence of poems set in Israel and the West Bank. Ranging over time and continents, the poems in MEMOS FROM THE BROKEN WORLD, tell of our longing for the perfection of 'snow in the morning / before any footstep has broken the crust' and of the various strategies we humans devise, as we pursue happiness in an imperfect world. "'Time eats everything up,' writes Jean Nordhaus, and that includes our griefs as well as our joys. Her poems in MEMOS FROM THE BROKEN WORLD stand as antidotes to Time's thoughtless erasures, reminding us--for what else is a memo but a reminder?--that the world is broken so that it may continue. Home and homelessness, exile and restoration, childhood and parenthood, the range of subjects among these short, perfect lyrics is breathtaking. These are poems in praise of the continuities of living."--Mark Jarman "Though these poems can't mend our broken world, they can surely illuminate it for us with their wisdom and craft. Jean Nordhaus is a poet of keen intelligence, her language spare but resonant. This new book offers many pleasures and should earn for its author the large readership she has long deserved."--Linda Pastan "We have the rarity of a book of poetry that sustain
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Seller's Description:
Very good. SIGNED by the author. Minor shelf and handling wear, overall a clean solid copy with minimal signs of use. Signed by author on main title page. The binding is tight; the pages are clean and unmarked. Secure packaging for safe delivery.