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About this item
Highlights
- A book-length sequence of poems, Matthew Thorburn's String tells the story of a teenage boy's experiences in a time of war and its aftermath.
- About the Author: Matthew Thorburn is the author of eight poetry collections, including The Grace of Distance, a finalist for the Paterson Poetry Prize, and the book-length poem Dear Almost, which won the Lascaux Prize.
- 84 Pages
- Poetry, American
- Series Name: Barataria Poetry
Description
About the Book
"A book-length sequence of poems, Matthew Thorburn's String tells the story of a teenage boy's experiences in a time of war and its aftermath. He loses his family and friends, his home and the life he knew, but survives to tell his story. Written in the boy's fractured, echoing voice-in lines that are frequently enjambed and use almost no punctuation-String embodies his trauma and confusion in a poetic sequence that is part lullaby, part nightmare, but always a music that is uniquely his. The string of the narrative loops forward and backward; it's tangled and knotted. At first the boy believes that if he holds tight to this string and keeps following it, he can reach its other end and find a sense of peace. Ultimately, though, he realizes the string is endless. It keeps circling back. But what else is left to hold onto? How else can he remember what life was like before the war, remember the loved ones he lost, make sense of how he alone survived? And so he keeps telling and retelling his story, shaping his experiences into "sentences re- // worked until / they break / the hurt they / make a song.""--Book Synopsis
A book-length sequence of poems, Matthew Thorburn's String tells the story of a teenage boy's experiences in a time of war and its aftermath. He loses his family and friends, his home and the life he knew, but survives to tell his story. Written in the boy's fractured, echoing voice--in lines that are frequently enjambed and use almost no punctuation--String embodies his trauma and confusion in a poetic sequence that is part lullaby, part nightmare, but always a music that is uniquely his.Review Quotes
"String is a stirring bravura performance, a love song and a song of war, a chronicle of damage, a testament to our capacity for perseverance."--Michael Dumanis
"Matthew Thorburn's String is a harrowing and tender unraveling of trauma, in which the brutal (dis)memberments of war are (re)membered through the point of view of a young boy. Here, string functions as mending, as artful stitching of the liminal--both a doing and an undoing, a narrativization of erasures through stories that are both silenced and then sung."--Lee Ann Roripaugh
"No book has moved me as much as String, epic in scope but intimate as a lullaby. These poems remind us that life is not about the wish our hope makes as we toss a coin; it's not that one side of the coin is despair and one side joy; it's the constant flipping of the coin as it falls and the music it makes ringing against the sides of the empty well."--Rhett Iseman Trull
About the Author
Matthew Thorburn is the author of eight poetry collections, including The Grace of Distance, a finalist for the Paterson Poetry Prize, and the book-length poem Dear Almost, which won the Lascaux Prize.Dimensions (Overall): 9.0 Inches (H) x 6.0 Inches (W) x .21 Inches (D)
Weight: .3 Pounds
Suggested Age: 22 Years and Up
Series Title: Barataria Poetry
Sub-Genre: American
Genre: Poetry
Number of Pages: 84
Publisher: LSU Press
Theme: General
Format: Paperback
Author: Matthew Thorburn
Language: English
Street Date: March 1, 2023
TCIN: 88968604
UPC: 9780807179048
Item Number (DPCI): 247-36-8213
Origin: Made in the USA or Imported
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Shipping details
Estimated ship dimensions: 0.21 inches length x 6 inches width x 9 inches height
Estimated ship weight: 0.3 pounds
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