Reading Novalis in Montana
by Melissa Kwasny
This tour de force by the author of Thistle and The Archival Birds marks a breakthrough in Melissa Kwasny’s poetic investigation of a collective consciousness.
Kwasny divines the palpable and ineffable ways in which inherited
traditions—indigenous culture, mythology, romanticism, modernism,
surrealism, postmodernism, and more—inform daily life. Finding inspiration in the mountain West, Kwasny weaves a shimmering web of connections. Throughout,
details of lived experience emerge—hiking through the Pacific
Northwest, caring for an elder's great granddaughter, helping a friend
deal with cancer, sorting through the ruins of a relationship —and yet
the interior voice is always tuned to the physical world, envisioning
the shared understanding that connects all life. Versatile in its forms
and expressions, encyclopedic in its comprehension, Reading Novalis in Montana is a virtuoso performance.
Read an excerpt from Reading Novalis in Montana
Author's Bio:Melissa Kwasny is the author of two previous books of poetry, The Archival Birds (Bear Star Press, 2000) and Thistle (Lost Horse Press, 2006), which also won the Idaho Prize for 2006. She is the editor of the anthology Toward the Open Field: Poets on the Art of Poetry 1800-1950 (Wesleyan University Press 2004). Widely published in journals, including Willow Springs, Threepenny Review, Ploughshares, Poetry Northwest, Bellingham Review, Crab Orchard Review, and River Styx,
she has recently been the Richard Hugo Visiting Poet at the University
of Montana and a Visiting Writer at the University of Wyoming. She
lives in Jefferson City, Montana.
Quotes:"Kwasny’s poems strike that tension between the concrete and the ethereal. Here is a voice brave enough to admit loving 'flowers/more than people' and giving readers every reason to understand and celebrate that conviction. Read this book and know what it means to live with the world, rather than on it. "
—Eric Gansworth, author of A Half-Life of Cardio-Pulmonary Function
"Surrounded by new books of poems that seem increasingly thin and merely clever, Melissa Kwasny’s work serves as a brilliant tonic, reminding us of the essential gravitas of poems of distinction. Hers present a richly textured surface and a deeply thought interior..."
—Albert Goldbarth, author of The Kitchen Sink
"Kwasny's methods of inclusivity and measurement are as open to empiricism as they are to invocation—of animal spirit, of myth, of the great poet philosophers, of the land itself, where ‘the dirt road is frozen. I hear the geese, first in my lungs.’"
—Rusty Morrison, author of the true keeps calm biding its story
"Truly refreshing . . . Reading Novalis in Montana never stops asking questions or trying to find answers, reminding the reader there is more to life than one settles for or often cares to know."
—Feminist Review
"Erudite, sensitive, distilled, and deft. Reading Novalis in Montana is a positive and delicious read."
—CutBank Reviews
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Price:
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Binding: Paperback
Availability In Stock: 91
Available Immediately
Publisher: Milkweed Editions
Published: 2009
Size: 8 1/2 x 5 1/2
Edition: 1st
Genre: Poetry
Pages: 96
ISBN: 9781571314291
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