Ringer
Poems
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- 14,99 €
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- 14,99 €
Publisher Description
Winner, 2018 Donald Hall Prize for Poetry
Finalist, 2020 Housatonic Book Awards
Ringer approaches womanhood from two directions: an examination of ways that women’s identities are tied to domestic spaces, like homes, cars, grocery stores, and daycare centers; and a consideration of physical, sexual, and political violence against women, both historically and in the present day. Lehmann’s poems look outward, and go beyond cataloguing trespasses against women by biting back against patriarchal systems of oppression, and against perpetrators of violence against women. Many poems in Ringer are ecopoetical, functioning in a “junk” or “sad” pastoral mode, inhabiting abandoned, forgotten, and sometimes impoverished landscapes of rural America.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Part eco-poetic, part confessional, the second book from Lehmann (Between the Crackups) transports the reader to landscapes internal and external with acerbic wit and renegade fury. Notably, Lehmann's feminist indignation leaves readers with a feeling of wry endearment: "Softness is a chapped nipple./ You wanted broad sad bitches against your head/ like an electrical storm.//... The world is an old grave. Woman sparkle like cheap/ glitter from its bottom." Lehmann challenges readers to consider the narrative of their lives and embody the natural beauty of the world: "Be the ecstatic middle night. Be the light through yonder window./ Soft, be the lilac branch breaking." Though her sentiment is consistently poignant, the poet occasionally overexercises metaphors and stylistic choices, resulting in a forced sheen or labored wonder: "Why is the bumblebee yellow and black? Why does the snow recede/ from the back porch like waves of sadness." Considered overall, Lehmann's latest book offers readers a sagacious and kinetic whirlwind of unrest and gratitude for the world.
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