Applause
Poems
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- $16.99
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
National Book Award finalist Carol Muske-Dukes explores joy, dread, and the solitary communion of applause
Applause provides twenty vivid and evocative poems by Carol Muske-Dukes. In "Dream," she seeks the past in reverie, along with bicoastal riffs on New York City and Los Angeles. "The Eulogy" paints the scene of a funeral in sunny California where a young man who has died of AIDS is laid to rest. In the title poem, a twelve-part journey through the ritual of applause, Muske-Dukes examines the power of a gesture—clapping—to transform oneself from individual to communal. "What a strange phenomenon," she says, "to be single and plural at once, to feel joy and dread simultaneously, to wish to acknowledge publicly one's anonymity."
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
With subtlety and intelligence, Muske ( Camouflage ) creates tensions that are chilling and sharp; she limns emotional and physical distances, unavoidable ambiguity and contradiction. Her acceptance of these ``issues'' is never passive--this collection is rife with questions, doubts, reluctant resignations. A 12-part title poem explores the ritual and symbolism suggested by applause: ``I am the one watching / you and saying it is good, making my two hands the collision of /love and power.'' The volume's other poems don't match the title work in potency, breadth and originality; the language can be dense and cluttered, the ideas murky. Though she chooses exotic details, Muske doesn't sufficiently elucidate their purpose in the poems; the narratives as a whole don't support the richness and weight of these particulars.
