Four Way Books, 2013 Paper: 978-1-935536-27-7 Library of Congress Classification PS3623.H569S63 2013 Dewey Decimal Classification 811.6
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | TOC
ABOUT THIS BOOK
Out of an urgent need to grasp what it means to lose a loved one to suicide, these poems fixate on the physical as a means of exploring the intangible—though paradoxically palpable—emotion of grief. Small Porcelain Head metaphorically explores the stark stillness of loss through the inanimate quality of dolls and revisits lines from a suicide note as a means of final “conversation.”
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
ALLISON BENIS WHITE is the author of Self-Portrait with Crayon. Her honors include the Indiana Review Poetry Prize, the Bernice Slote Award from Prairie Schooner, and a Writers Exchange Award from Poets & Writers. She teaches at the University of California, Irvine.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
“If pain is only weakness...” • “What is left but obsession...” • “Please forgive me...” • “That she has the right...” • “Even the violence...” • “And she would talk...” • “Not to let go...” • “Buttoned together...” • “After our fingers...” • “If description is a living thing...” • “If to memorize is to adore...” • “Just as the cork descends...” • “Unlike the other automatons...” • “The arm is good...” • “If God is everything...” • “Pinholes in her plastic chest...” • “Cutting her black hair...” • “Only her eyes...” • “She pushes the white...” • “What we end up with...” • “Decapitated...” • “This is the gift of violence...” • “An entire story...” • “How the stillness...” • “For the easily broken...” • “The miracle is rooted...” • “Several leather fingers...” • “Each time she taps...” • “Legs apart and arms...” • “Twins in red silk...” • “A mechanism in the body...” • “Or lost teeth...” • “Sewn together at the waist...” • “What makes the object alive...” • “Wax is most like skin...” • “Although the terror mirrors awe...” • “Within the bonnet...” • “Because the pain is company...” • “Is this the beauty...” • “Then the relief...” • “We call the denial of stillness...” • “And when she is held closer...” • “Made with a hollow...” • “Now filled with sand...”
Out of an urgent need to grasp what it means to lose a loved one to suicide, these poems fixate on the physical as a means of exploring the intangible—though paradoxically palpable—emotion of grief. Small Porcelain Head metaphorically explores the stark stillness of loss through the inanimate quality of dolls and revisits lines from a suicide note as a means of final “conversation.”
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
ALLISON BENIS WHITE is the author of Self-Portrait with Crayon. Her honors include the Indiana Review Poetry Prize, the Bernice Slote Award from Prairie Schooner, and a Writers Exchange Award from Poets & Writers. She teaches at the University of California, Irvine.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
“If pain is only weakness...” • “What is left but obsession...” • “Please forgive me...” • “That she has the right...” • “Even the violence...” • “And she would talk...” • “Not to let go...” • “Buttoned together...” • “After our fingers...” • “If description is a living thing...” • “If to memorize is to adore...” • “Just as the cork descends...” • “Unlike the other automatons...” • “The arm is good...” • “If God is everything...” • “Pinholes in her plastic chest...” • “Cutting her black hair...” • “Only her eyes...” • “She pushes the white...” • “What we end up with...” • “Decapitated...” • “This is the gift of violence...” • “An entire story...” • “How the stillness...” • “For the easily broken...” • “The miracle is rooted...” • “Several leather fingers...” • “Each time she taps...” • “Legs apart and arms...” • “Twins in red silk...” • “A mechanism in the body...” • “Or lost teeth...” • “Sewn together at the waist...” • “What makes the object alive...” • “Wax is most like skin...” • “Although the terror mirrors awe...” • “Within the bonnet...” • “Because the pain is company...” • “Is this the beauty...” • “Then the relief...” • “We call the denial of stillness...” • “And when she is held closer...” • “Made with a hollow...” • “Now filled with sand...”