Still Life with Mother and Knife - (Sea Cliff Fund) by Chelsea Rathburn (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

In this powerful collection, Chelsea Rathburn seeks to voice matters once deemed unspeakable, from collisions between children and predators to the realities of postpartum depression. Still Life with Mother and Knife considers the female body, "mute and posable," as object of both art and violence. Once an artist's model, now a mother, Rathburn knows "how hard / it is to be held in the eyes of another." Intimate and fearless, her poems move in interlocking sections between the pleasures and dangers of childhood, between masterpieces of art and magazine centerfolds, and--in a gripping sequence in dialogue with Delacroix's paintings and sketches of Medea--between the twinned ferocities of maternal love and rage. With singular vision and potent poetic form, Rathburn crafts a complex portrait of girlhood and motherhood from which it is impossible to look away.

Review Quotes

Chelsea Rathburn is canny about so many things, the body, the small town, the structure of memory, the relationship between a mother and her child, and even the maternal feelings of Medea. Few poets can write with such frankness and good humor about their physical being and at the same time reveal their souls. Art, parenting, marriage, the imprint of memory, the violence that hovers in the background of American life, all are expressed in poems made so well that you will shake your head with admiration for their craft. Hers is an art of sanity and clarity and is more welcome now than ever.--Mark Jarman, author of The Heronry

About the Author

Chelsea Rathburn is the author of two previous poetry collections, The Shifting Line, winner of the 2005 Richard Wilbur Award, and A Raft of Grief. A native of Miami, Florida, she now lives in the mountains of Georgia with her husband, the poet James Davis May, and their daughter.