Solutions for the Problem of Bodies in Space: Poems [Paperback]

The loneliness that collects in mirrors and facesat bedside vigils and in city streetsquickens Catherine Barnetts metaphysical poems, which are like speculative prescriptions for this common human experience. Here loneliness is filled with belonging, which is in turn filled with loneliness, each state suffused and emptied by the other. Barnetts fourth collection is part manifesto, part how-to manual, part apologia: a guide to the homeopathic dangers and healing powers of an emotion so charged with eros, humor, and elusive beauty it becomes a companion both desired and eschewed, necessary and illuminating.

Solutions for the Problem of Bodies in Spaceis never far from grief or a comedy of bewilderment, inadequacy, hope. Entering Barnetts world is a little like entering an electrically charged cloud, and the prospect of either falling or getting caught in a storm brings vertiginous and unpredictable pleasures. Bristling with uncanny intelligence, the poems are sometimes quiet elegies, sometimes meditations on art, love, and the failures of love that so often define love. Barnett might be called a realisther style is radiantly exactyet somehow she is a guide both into and out of the existential void. She has written a tender, dazzling collection of estrangement and intimacy.

Catherine Barnett's new poems move beautifully and unpredictably through loneliness, comedy, intellect, and love.Catherine Barnett is the author of three previous poetry collections, includingHuman Hours, winner of the Believer Book Award, andThe Game of Boxes, winner of the James Laughlin Award of the Academy of American Poets. She lives in New York City.

APublishers WeeklyBest Book of 2024

The stunning latest from Barnett (Human Hours) blends the witty and the philosophical to offer a study in 'restricted fragile materials,' or the bewildering condition of being alive. Urbane, perceptive, and starkly humane, these are poems oflÃN