Read Bones of Light (Parallel Press Chapbook Series)

Bones of Light (Parallel Press Chapbook Series)

Judith Sornberger

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Description:Judith Sornberger writes that her ultimate aspiration is to "join the herd of bones,/add my light to theirs…" "I want to take my tongue along/their contours, reinvent their glisten,/tickling the smooth secrets of sockets." The contours traced in Sornberger's poems include family ties, sexuality, war, ineffectual faith, violation, love of place, death. These elemental bones of experience do indeed glisten under Sornberger's tongue, grinning with wonder and sensual delight, aching with unanswered questions and loss. Sornberger draws word-images so effectively that the reader looks over her shoulder at living scenes. Then she steps back to "tickl{e) the…sockets," to caressingly consider the secrets of our joinings to relationship, gender, place, history and meaning. Thus we watch as the "ordinary bodies" of parents become seductively fluid on the dance floor, prompting their offspring to recognize, "there's something they have/yet to tell us." We hear a child say her prayers at length every night. "Everything, even the stars, needed my blessing." Until eventually "I was grown…/And I knew how not to pray." Then one night's news carries images of war and "a broken face I can't stand to see," and a spiritual nerve is struck. "Of one thing I am certain:/this man suffers for our sins-…/There must be…/some cure/for how we lay us down, for how we sleep." Sornberger acknowledges the perplexing contradiction of life's vigor and fragility. Yet she stops at any sighting of hope, which can unexpectedly arrest us like a brilliantly colored bird in flight. "…you fear you won't see it,/that it's flitted away like too many wishes." But wait and watch; it's "reappearing now/and now and now until it seems/there is no end to hoping." Such resilience is the glisten in Sornberger's "Bones of Light."A native of Nebraska, Judith Sornberger is a descendant of Irish cattle ranchers and Swedish farmers. She has a Ph.D. in English from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Sornberger's book of poems, Open Heart, was published by Calyx Books in 1993. Her chapbook Judith Beheading Holfernes, won the 1993 Talent House Press chapbook contest and was published by that press, as was a subsequent chapbook, Bifocals Barbie: A Midlife Pantheon (1996). Her poems and essays regularly appear in journals such as Prairie Schooner, Puerto del Sol, West Branch, and Calyx. She has taught in a wide variety of venues. Her first teaching experience was in a Nebraska prison, where she taught poetry and other writing courses. Sornberger is currently a professor in English and Women's Studies at Mansfield University of Pennsylvania in the northern-most tier of the Appalachians. She is the mother of adult twin sons, and is married to writer Bruce Barton.We have made it easy for you to find a PDF Ebooks without any digging. And by having access to our ebooks online or by storing it on your computer, you have convenient answers with Bones of Light (Parallel Press Chapbook Series). To get started finding Bones of Light (Parallel Press Chapbook Series), you are right to find our website which has a comprehensive collection of manuals listed.
Our library is the biggest of these that have literally hundreds of thousands of different products represented.

Pages: —

Format: PDF, EPUB & Kindle Edition

Publisher: Parallel Press

Release: 2003

ISBN: 1893311341

Description: Judith Sornberger writes that her ultimate aspiration is to "join the herd of bones,/add my light to theirs…" "I want to take my tongue along/their contours, reinvent their glisten,/tickling the smooth secrets of sockets." The contours traced in Sornberger's poems include family ties, sexuality, war, ineffectual faith, violation, love of place, death. These elemental bones of experience do indeed glisten under Sornberger's tongue, grinning with wonder and sensual delight, aching with unanswered questions and loss. Sornberger draws word-images so effectively that the reader looks over her shoulder at living scenes. Then she steps back to "tickl{e) the…sockets," to caressingly consider the secrets of our joinings to relationship, gender, place, history and meaning. Thus we watch as the "ordinary bodies" of parents become seductively fluid on the dance floor, prompting their offspring to recognize, "there's something they have/yet to tell us." We hear a child say her prayers at length every night. "Everything, even the stars, needed my blessing." Until eventually "I was grown…/And I knew how not to pray." Then one night's news carries images of war and "a broken face I can't stand to see," and a spiritual nerve is struck. "Of one thing I am certain:/this man suffers for our sins-…/There must be…/some cure/for how we lay us down, for how we sleep." Sornberger acknowledges the perplexing contradiction of life's vigor and fragility. Yet she stops at any sighting of hope, which can unexpectedly arrest us like a brilliantly colored bird in flight. "…you fear you won't see it,/that it's flitted away like too many wishes." But wait and watch; it's "reappearing now/and now and now until it seems/there is no end to hoping." Such resilience is the glisten in Sornberger's "Bones of Light."A native of Nebraska, Judith Sornberger is a descendant of Irish cattle ranchers and Swedish farmers. She has a Ph.D. in English from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Sornberger's book of poems, Open Heart, was published by Calyx Books in 1993. Her chapbook Judith Beheading Holfernes, won the 1993 Talent House Press chapbook contest and was published by that press, as was a subsequent chapbook, Bifocals Barbie: A Midlife Pantheon (1996). Her poems and essays regularly appear in journals such as Prairie Schooner, Puerto del Sol, West Branch, and Calyx. She has taught in a wide variety of venues. Her first teaching experience was in a Nebraska prison, where she taught poetry and other writing courses. Sornberger is currently a professor in English and Women's Studies at Mansfield University of Pennsylvania in the northern-most tier of the Appalachians. She is the mother of adult twin sons, and is married to writer Bruce Barton.We have made it easy for you to find a PDF Ebooks without any digging. And by having access to our ebooks online or by storing it on your computer, you have convenient answers with Bones of Light (Parallel Press Chapbook Series). To get started finding Bones of Light (Parallel Press Chapbook Series), you are right to find our website which has a comprehensive collection of manuals listed.
Our library is the biggest of these that have literally hundreds of thousands of different products represented.

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Bones of Light (Parallel Press Chapbook Series)

Bones of Light (Parallel Press Chapbook Series)

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