University of Arkansas Press, 1992 Cloth: 978-1-55728-246-0 | Paper: 978-1-55728-247-7 | eISBN: 978-1-61075-017-2 Library of Congress Classification PS3569.U255A84 1991 Dewey Decimal Classification 811.54
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
ABOUT THIS BOOK
Winner of the 1991 Arkansas Poetry Award, 1992 Roanoke-Chowan Poetry Award, and 1993 Bess Hokin Prize
Others may lament the uncertainties and disappointments of life, but Julie Suk, winner of the second annual Arkansas Poetry Award, embraces its tumult. Turning from the unsullied angels and the paradises captured by generations of artists, these poems focus instead on those who have abandoned heaven for the world of such mundane matters as family, loneliness, love, and loss. Rousing us to the passion and wonder that define our essential humanity, The Angel of Obsession celebrates the full, ragged canvas of living.
Suk’s poetry has previously appeared in The Georgia Review, The Midwest Quarterly, Southern Humanities Review, Poetry, and other important literary magazines. The Angel of Obsession was selected for publication from a field of more than five hundred entries by the poet John Stone.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY Julie Suk is the author of six books of poetry and the coeditor of Bear Crossings: an Anthology of North American Poets. Her poems have appeared in many literary journals including Poetry, The Georgia Review, The Laurel Review, Ploughshares, Shenandoah, and TriQuarterly. She lives in Charlotte, North Carolina. Her awards include the Roanoke-Chowan Award, the Brockman-Campbell Award, the Bess Hokin Prize from Poetry magazine. She is a former managing editor of Southern Poetry Review.
REVIEWS
“Vivid, precise, genuine and daring, the poems in this book lodge in the heart as securely as the greetings of lovers. A fine achievement.”
—Fred Chappell
“Often, in these disturbingly beautiful poems, dreams chart the by-ways of our waking lives, telling us, through rich and sensuous imagery, what happens when the roads turn, when paths take unpredicted directions. The Angel of Obsession is a wise book whose consolation is in its deeply resonate language, its truths.”
—Susan Ludvigson
“So many poems, past and current, seem to have been too easily born, as if their authors were merely wishing to be poets. But everywhere in Julie Suk’s book we are confronted with passion, that uniquely human gift—and curse—for deep and conscious commitment. Line after line of her poetry is brief and spare, as if cut precisely and painfully from the stone of an earth that is, for good and ill, no heaven.”
—Stephen Corey
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Contents
I
Beyond the Hill
In the Garden of Earthly Delights
Birthday Song
In Eterno
Original Sin
La Tempesta
Quicksilver
Mortal Taste
Family
Loving to Death
Words I Won't Give Up On
Falling to Sleep
Smoldering
II
Waking the Stars
Nothing to Do with Us
Angels That Keep Us
Sleepers
Dreaming the Dead
Canada Geese
Remembering the Plot
Don't Tell Me
How We Move Away
Not Lost
Rain
From the Stars, Silence
After It's Over and You're the Last One
Early and Late
III
Fallen unto Tears
La Dolce Vita
Playing against Sleep
A Cut in the Mountain
Executions, May
Underworld
Rehearsing Death
Chartres
The Beautiful Lies Outside
Epitaph
The Path
The Poem about Greece
Floating Tethered
REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
If you are a student who cannot use this book in printed form, BiblioVault may be able to supply you
with an electronic file for alternative access.
Please have the accessibility coordinator at your school fill out this form.
University of Arkansas Press, 1992 Cloth: 978-1-55728-246-0 Paper: 978-1-55728-247-7 eISBN: 978-1-61075-017-2
Winner of the 1991 Arkansas Poetry Award, 1992 Roanoke-Chowan Poetry Award, and 1993 Bess Hokin Prize
Others may lament the uncertainties and disappointments of life, but Julie Suk, winner of the second annual Arkansas Poetry Award, embraces its tumult. Turning from the unsullied angels and the paradises captured by generations of artists, these poems focus instead on those who have abandoned heaven for the world of such mundane matters as family, loneliness, love, and loss. Rousing us to the passion and wonder that define our essential humanity, The Angel of Obsession celebrates the full, ragged canvas of living.
Suk’s poetry has previously appeared in The Georgia Review, The Midwest Quarterly, Southern Humanities Review, Poetry, and other important literary magazines. The Angel of Obsession was selected for publication from a field of more than five hundred entries by the poet John Stone.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY Julie Suk is the author of six books of poetry and the coeditor of Bear Crossings: an Anthology of North American Poets. Her poems have appeared in many literary journals including Poetry, The Georgia Review, The Laurel Review, Ploughshares, Shenandoah, and TriQuarterly. She lives in Charlotte, North Carolina. Her awards include the Roanoke-Chowan Award, the Brockman-Campbell Award, the Bess Hokin Prize from Poetry magazine. She is a former managing editor of Southern Poetry Review.
REVIEWS
“Vivid, precise, genuine and daring, the poems in this book lodge in the heart as securely as the greetings of lovers. A fine achievement.”
—Fred Chappell
“Often, in these disturbingly beautiful poems, dreams chart the by-ways of our waking lives, telling us, through rich and sensuous imagery, what happens when the roads turn, when paths take unpredicted directions. The Angel of Obsession is a wise book whose consolation is in its deeply resonate language, its truths.”
—Susan Ludvigson
“So many poems, past and current, seem to have been too easily born, as if their authors were merely wishing to be poets. But everywhere in Julie Suk’s book we are confronted with passion, that uniquely human gift—and curse—for deep and conscious commitment. Line after line of her poetry is brief and spare, as if cut precisely and painfully from the stone of an earth that is, for good and ill, no heaven.”
—Stephen Corey
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Contents
I
Beyond the Hill
In the Garden of Earthly Delights
Birthday Song
In Eterno
Original Sin
La Tempesta
Quicksilver
Mortal Taste
Family
Loving to Death
Words I Won't Give Up On
Falling to Sleep
Smoldering
II
Waking the Stars
Nothing to Do with Us
Angels That Keep Us
Sleepers
Dreaming the Dead
Canada Geese
Remembering the Plot
Don't Tell Me
How We Move Away
Not Lost
Rain
From the Stars, Silence
After It's Over and You're the Last One
Early and Late
III
Fallen unto Tears
La Dolce Vita
Playing against Sleep
A Cut in the Mountain
Executions, May
Underworld
Rehearsing Death
Chartres
The Beautiful Lies Outside
Epitaph
The Path
The Poem about Greece
Floating Tethered
REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
If you are a student who cannot use this book in printed form, BiblioVault may be able to supply you
with an electronic file for alternative access.
Please have the accessibility coordinator at your school fill out this form.
It can take 2-3 weeks for requests to be filled.
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE