Opinel: Poems [Paperback]

Named after a workaday knife wielded by shepherds and farmers in the high pastures of the Alps when a tool for paring, shaping, cutting into, scraping out of, or freeing is useful, these poems likewise cleave away the false and deceptive to clarify and reveal a startling and unifying wonder. In language radiant, lovely, and disturbing, Rebecca Kaiser Gibson explores the linkages between the uncomfortable familiar and the curiously intimate strange, making unexpected connections between phenomena. Arranged by association rather than chronology and connected by a sensual intelligence, this collection wanders from Maryland and India to Boston, France, New Hampshire and Irelandfrom Ezekiel's Flight and the Book of Kells, to the Tamil goddess Meenakshi.Poetry of startling grace and clarityAt the Audiologist'sShe Took to the Bed and StayedSilent in the FaceStink of DogUseless NowThey Drank Whiskey in the FiftiesHer Razor Like Her MindProximities Just Out of ReachII. Once in OrgevalCalfskin Was Calf's SkinSay AgainMirrorOde to the Rock in Front of MeOde to the Rhododendron, Early WinterMidwinter RhododendronBlank-Eyed at Me in the WindowYearningBut Do Not Only Weep, Take Heart Steadily the RiverSanta CatalinaSheddingUp from the Earth the Air Is in Cups, My HandsMy Mouth, the EgoIII.Ayurvedic MassageCoconutsIncognito at the GroceryKnown GodsMeenakshi, the Fish-Eyed GoddessThe O! PalmSinceMeenakshi in Starbucks' MermaidIn a Field of Slender GreenMushroomsGlobal WarmingOn the ConnecticutAfter We FlaredThose of Us Who Are AliveFlight After DeathThenIt's Only RainingThe String That IsNotesAcknowledgmentsUS