University of Wisconsin Press, 2020 Paper: 978-0-299-32664-7 Library of Congress Classification PS3608.E493Q44 2020 Dewey Decimal Classification 811.6
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC
ABOUT THIS BOOK This gorgeous and wry debut firmly claims physical strength, toughness, and authority for femininity. Ambalila Hemsell’s poems speak from a place of empowerment as well as wonder. They address the insatiable fear of motherhood and the violence embedded in natural processes of creation, birth, and survival. Her words flicker and glow with magical realism, just as they reveal profound truths shared by the miraculous and the mundane. This lush and lyric collection artfully tackles what it means to reconcile one’s own needs and desires with those of others, and to find abundance and strength in the midst of catastrophe.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY Ambalila Hemsell is a writer, musician, and educator from Colorado. Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and appeared in numerous publications, including Fairy Tale Review, the American Literary Review, and the Florida Review.
REVIEWS
“The work of an important new voice. These poems are transcendent and haunting. The breathtaking associative, spiritual, and psychological acrobatics in this poetry are not decorative or experimental or performative. The artistry here is a magician’s. She changes us. A reader could ask no more of any collection of poems.”—Laura Kasischke, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry
“Hemsell gets it. She has written an incredible debut that anyone who plans to tend to our beloveds or our beloved earth in the coming days simply must read. This is the eco-poetics we need in the world. Don’t let the beauty distract you from the call to action.”—Danez Smith, author of Don’t Call Us Dead
“At once a splendor of lyricism and a contemplative account of lineage, otherness, and ethnicity. Hemsell’s extraordinary verbal deftness precisely locates the still-tender pains and triumphs of being a mother, a daughter, and a lover while still trying to be an individual in the world.”—Airea D. Matthews, author of Simulacra
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Contents
joy 3 I
Son 7
Passport 8
Spirit Gulch 16
Animating Principle 18
History/Memory 20
Alaska 27
elegy for lilac 28
Letter to the Dead 30
Witness to a chain of bursting 31
mourning 33
the tooth 34
Jigsaw 35
The Neighborhood 39 II
the animals 43
Sketching Finches 45
winnowed 46
Mule Poetica 48
Young with Bad Wrists 50
And Then 52
The Wanting 54
Think Global/Act Local 56
Somerset 58
Terra Machina 60
Unearth 62 III
Queen of Hearts 67
The Pardoner 68
Eleven Ten 70
Queen in Blue 71
Libra Season ; 73
The Gardener 74 IV
Rome 79
Origin Story 80
Glossary 82
The Trouble with Sleeping 84
For the Light 86
yes, but 87
poem with a bat in it 89
Marsh Song 90
Hour of Unbroken Eggs 91
I’ll Be Here 92
Borrowed or Stolen, Like Children 93
Prayer 95
Some years later/after sex/you asked 96
Night Song 97
Cusp 101 Notes 103
Acknowledgments 105
University of Wisconsin Press, 2020 Paper: 978-0-299-32664-7
This gorgeous and wry debut firmly claims physical strength, toughness, and authority for femininity. Ambalila Hemsell’s poems speak from a place of empowerment as well as wonder. They address the insatiable fear of motherhood and the violence embedded in natural processes of creation, birth, and survival. Her words flicker and glow with magical realism, just as they reveal profound truths shared by the miraculous and the mundane. This lush and lyric collection artfully tackles what it means to reconcile one’s own needs and desires with those of others, and to find abundance and strength in the midst of catastrophe.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY Ambalila Hemsell is a writer, musician, and educator from Colorado. Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and appeared in numerous publications, including Fairy Tale Review, the American Literary Review, and the Florida Review.
REVIEWS
“The work of an important new voice. These poems are transcendent and haunting. The breathtaking associative, spiritual, and psychological acrobatics in this poetry are not decorative or experimental or performative. The artistry here is a magician’s. She changes us. A reader could ask no more of any collection of poems.”—Laura Kasischke, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry
“Hemsell gets it. She has written an incredible debut that anyone who plans to tend to our beloveds or our beloved earth in the coming days simply must read. This is the eco-poetics we need in the world. Don’t let the beauty distract you from the call to action.”—Danez Smith, author of Don’t Call Us Dead
“At once a splendor of lyricism and a contemplative account of lineage, otherness, and ethnicity. Hemsell’s extraordinary verbal deftness precisely locates the still-tender pains and triumphs of being a mother, a daughter, and a lover while still trying to be an individual in the world.”—Airea D. Matthews, author of Simulacra
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Contents
joy 3 I
Son 7
Passport 8
Spirit Gulch 16
Animating Principle 18
History/Memory 20
Alaska 27
elegy for lilac 28
Letter to the Dead 30
Witness to a chain of bursting 31
mourning 33
the tooth 34
Jigsaw 35
The Neighborhood 39 II
the animals 43
Sketching Finches 45
winnowed 46
Mule Poetica 48
Young with Bad Wrists 50
And Then 52
The Wanting 54
Think Global/Act Local 56
Somerset 58
Terra Machina 60
Unearth 62 III
Queen of Hearts 67
The Pardoner 68
Eleven Ten 70
Queen in Blue 71
Libra Season ; 73
The Gardener 74 IV
Rome 79
Origin Story 80
Glossary 82
The Trouble with Sleeping 84
For the Light 86
yes, but 87
poem with a bat in it 89
Marsh Song 90
Hour of Unbroken Eggs 91
I’ll Be Here 92
Borrowed or Stolen, Like Children 93
Prayer 95
Some years later/after sex/you asked 96
Night Song 97
Cusp 101 Notes 103
Acknowledgments 105
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC