The Ghost Forest
New and Selected Poems
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- $15.99
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
“One of the most fascinating female poets of our time.” —Bomb
“Borrowing from [such writers as] Elizabeth Bishop and Chimako Tada, featuring ghosts and geoglyphs, writing in form and free verse, Kimiko Hahn’s broad and eclectic approach reveals a mind as vast as the terrains it traverses.”—Nicole Sealey, Poetry magazine
Opening with forty-three new formally inventive poems and leading the reader back in time through selections from her ten previous volumes, The Ghost Forest offers a contemplative and haunting narrative of a writer’s artistic journey through craft and form while illuminating her personal history. Exploring the mysteries of science, nature, and the experiences of contemporary womanhood, Hahn both reinvents classic Japanese forms and experiments with traditional Western ones. Braided into the poems and narrative thread, a series of photos transforms the new-and-selected into a hybrid autobiography. This arresting collection derives new beauty from long-gone remnants.
A Riotous Disorder
She mistakes one word for another—
Something her brain naturally concocts.
Her unruly gray matter and her heart
Mistake one word for an other—
Razor for river, cistern for sister.
Even c**k for clock.
She mistakes one word for a mother—
A safe her brain naturally unlocks.—
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In her contemplative 11th collection, Hahn (Foreign Bodies) offers a sustained meditation on poetic process. Continuing her lifelong devotion to formal experimentation, Hahn works within traditional Western forms (pantoum, villanelle, sestina) as well as newer forms, such as the golden shovel. Japanese forms (zuihitsu, tanka) draw inspiration from sources as divergent as Kaga no Chiyo, Adrienne Rich, Richard Wright, and the New York Times. In the book's intertwining of present and past, a ghost theme emerges through "A grove of memory. A marsh of forms." After all, Hahn writes, "Aren't allusions just ghosts?" Reflecting on her early work, she finds that she has unwittingly become an influence on younger poets: "I thought my Narrow Road would be my exploration, not models for others to follow"; "I wish/ I could just be counted like a bee/ darting then resting in the dark for renewal." The mature poet has a new set of intentions: "More than ever—I wish to draw the body back in. I wish for a drawer of spondees." An affectionate and candid letter from a writer to her readers, this is sure to especially delight aspiring poets.
