Crocus - (Poets Out Loud) by Karin Gottshall (Paperback)

About the Book

"These are lyrics that briefly and beautifully change our view of the world. In this effort, they do a quietly wild, beguilingly sudden work of making us rethink the ordinary before we can help ourselves, followed by the unnerving next part that hits us consequentially--we live in this world they are describing, though we had thought that we understood it perfectly well already. The best in these poems are their smallest moments, but once encountered, smallness means nothing but inspired surprise, as they have the power to alter us with unexpected ease. . . . The poems here, in sum, offer crisp language, language that speaks to new views, felt and therefore inherently worthy ways of reporting, all made forceful by strong and easy narrative guidance. The speaking of these poems throughout, even in their drama, is quiet, making everything that happens all the more unsettling as these ideas reach into us."-- Alberto R?osWhetherAligned with the mechanismwhereby the spirit is borne aloftthrough song comes againthe question: whether. And not soothedso much as opened by the boysoprano's Sanctus, what movesin the mind as the throat constrictsin sympathy, one note peeledfrom the last, fine as paper slippedfrom a garlic bulb, veined, translucent, is whether-as ifwound through the spiralingamplitude, purpled, fretted, one voice suspendedin concentration of prayer or terrorwills itself above faltering, more perfect since time mustsoon break it. And made it.Whether and by whatever impossiblearrangement of stars, harmonies, correspondences through whichthe music finds the spirit and likea blade slits and releases, circulates the questionthrough the phrase, the delicateengine-as if it matters: thesongrises, everything goes with it.The poems in Crocus take as their starting points the interioruni

Book Synopsis

Whether

Aligned with the mechanism
whereby the spirit is borne aloft
through song comes again

the question: whether. And not soothed
so much as opened by the boy
soprano's Sanctus, what moves

in the mind as the throat constricts
in sympathy, one note peeled
from the last, fine as paper slipped

from a garlic bulb, veined,
translucent, is whether--as if
wound through the spiraling

amplitude, purpled, fretted,
one voice suspended
in concentration of prayer or terror

wills itself above faltering,
more perfect since time must
soon break it. And made it.

Whether and by whatever impossible
arrangement of stars, harmonies,
correspondences through which

the music finds the spirit and like
a blade slits and releases,
circulates the question

through the phrase, the delicate
engine--as if it matters: the song
rises, everything goes with it.

The poems in Crocus take as their starting points the interior universes created by myth, art, and
memory, and through the exploration of these terrains create new ways of understanding the ordinary.

Review Quotes

British writer Virginia Woolf wrote about the pleasures of having a room of one's own. Here, Vermont poet Karin Gottshall shows us her own sort of private place.-- "--Tracy Press"

Crocus is not leadenly preoccupied with things; rather, its desire is to open again and again to the world.-- "--Mid-American Review"

About the Author

KARIN GOTTSHALL was recently writer-in-residence at Interlochen Arts Academy. Her poems have appeared in The Gettysburg Review, The Virginia Quarterly Review, The Southern Review, and in many other publications. She lives in Middlebury, Vermont.