Pole Dancing to Gospel Hymns [Paperback]

Four-time Denver Grand Champion, Pushcart Prize nominee, and winner of the 2008 Women of the World Poetry Slam Andrea Gibson's dynamic and energetic first book, Pole Dancing to Gospel Hymns, challenges us to not only read, but to react.

Hauntingly vivid, the poems march through a soldier's lingering psychological wounds, tackle the curious questions of school children on the meaning of "hate", and tangle with a lover's witty and vibrant description of longing.

Gibson's poems deconstruct the current political climate through stunning imagery and careful crafting. With the same velocity, the poignant and vacillating love poems sweep the air out of the room. It's word-induced hypoxia. Pole Dancing to Gospel Hymns whispers with a bold and unforgettable internal voice rich with the kind of questioning that inspires action.Excerpt from:
POLE DANCER


She pole-dances to gospel hymns.
Came out to her family in the middle of Thanksgivinggrace.
I knew she was trouble
two years before our first date.
But my heart was a Labrador Retriever
with its head hung out the window of a car
tongue flapping in the wind
on a highway going 95
whenever she walked by.

So I mastered the art of crochet
and I crocheted her a winter scarf
and one night at the bar I gave it to her with a note
that said something like,
I hope this keeps your neck war.
If it doesn't give me a call...


...And I want to grow
strong as the last patch of sage on a hillside
stretching towards the lightning.
God has always been an arsonist.
Heaven has always been on fire.
She is a butterfly knife bursting from a cocoon in mybelly.
LovelÃÝ