Kimberly Lyons
Auteur de Abracadabra
Œuvres de Kimberly Lyons
Phototherapique 1 exemplaire
Oeuvres associées
The Best American Poetry 2023 (The Best American Poetry series) (2023) — Contributeur — 19 exemplaires
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Statistiques
- Œuvres
- 4
- Aussi par
- 1
- Membres
- 21
- Popularité
- #570,576
- Évaluation
- 3.7
- Critiques
- 2
- ISBN
- 3
"Abracadabra" is, of course, the most common word associated w/ magic spells. Wave a magic wand, say "Abracadabra" & the desired magical change happens. In the poem entitled "Object Relations" Lyons writes:
"This summer I don't remember any paintings
did I just read the words "dry torches" or
think it
that seems to summarize the quandary"
& then, later in "'Tude" she writes:
"Say "party hat," or "red couch," "lime
green popsickle," and "taxi." "Umbrella
tree," "indigo," "come," and "promise.""
These might not seem to be incantatory words, but I like thinking of them that way. Some of those of us preoccupied w/ the power(s) of language spend time wondering whether attaching words to things simultaneously creates them in particular ways that may escape immediate notice. A person gets sad when there's a minimum of light for a long time? They have "S.A.D.", "Seasonal Affective Disorder" &, Abracadabra!, they now have a mental illness where they might've been previously just responding to a lack of a vitamin from the sun or an instinct for hibernation. But I digress.
I had trouble finding an entry point into these poems until I just took them as description - but a description in wch each sentence accumulates differently than they typically might in discursive paragraphs. A sentence describes something, the following sentence describes something else, the next something else again - & so on. Each sentence is quite full in & of itself & the sentences together, instead of focusing on details of a specified whole, refer to disparate details that the reader combines into an amorphous worldview. Take this, eg:
"
The Concise History of Painting
The cones and cubes of an ideal town
rise across the lake
of brown rumpled water
perfumed by egrets
and moths. And I fell asleep
briefly yesterday by the file cabinet
and had a dream, like a spasm.
Masses of clouds move sternly over
the ocean.
I suck on my violet duck.
I hit my spoon with the floor.
Call out to the
shadow of a saint
who has fallen under his horse.
"
The conceptual distance between each of these sentences is ambiguous. The 1st sentence cd be a description of a painting. The 2nd, b/c it describes an experience that "I" had may be autobiographical or not. The title implies possible references to paintings, the "I" implies 1st person - but they cd be both or neither. The sentences might form a narrative or they might be describing events far removed in time & place. As Jordan Davis' review on the back cover reads: "it is the unmoving objects that do the striking when there's a collision".
… (plus d'informations)