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Shattered Sonnets, Love Cards, and Other Off and Back Handed Importunities
Year
2015
Language
ENGLISH
Publication Information
Copper Canyon Press
Summary
Olena Kalytiak Davis's Shattered Sonnets has earned "cult classic" status and is an unremittingly electrifying collection brimming with intelligence, humor, and ardor. Drawing on an impressive array of forebears including Emily Dickinson, Gertrude Stein, and Sylvia Plath, Davis overhauls the sonnet and revitalizes the confessional style in poems that leave no convention unquestioned, no expectation unthwarted, no letter, spelling, or line break unconsidered. From "sweet reader, flannelled and tulled": You are cold. You are sick. You are silly. Forgive me, kind Reader, forgive me, I had not intended to step this quickly this farback. Reader, we had a quiet wedding: he & I, the parson & the clerk. Would I could, stead-fast, gracile facile Reader! Last, good Reader, tarry with me, jessa-mine Reader. Dar-(jee)ling, bide! Bide, Reader, tired, and stay, stay, stray Reader, true. R.: I had been secretly hoping this would turn into a love poem. Disconsolate. Illiterate. Reader, I have cleared this space for you, for you, for you.