Louise in Love: Poems

Front Cover
Grove Press, 2001 - Poetry - 81 pages
In this stunning new collection of poems, Mary Jo Bang jettisons the reader into the dreamlike world of Louise, a woman in love. With language delicate, smooth, and wryly funny, Louise is on a voyage without destination, traveling with a cast of enigmatic others, including her lover, Ham. Louise is as musical as she is mysterious and the reader is invited to listen. In her world, anything goes, provided it is breathtaking. Bang, whose first collection was the prize-winning Apology for Want, both parodies and pays homage to the lyric tradition, borrowing its lush music and dramatic structure to give new voice to the old concerns of the late Romantic poets. Louise in Love is a dramatic postmodern verse-novel with an eloquent free-floating narration. The poems, rife with literary allusion, take journeys to distant lands. And, like anyone on a voyage without a destination, they are endlessly questioning of the enigmatic world around them.
 

Contents

ECLIPSED
3
SHE COULDNT SING AT ALL AT ALL
4
THE DOG BARK
5
BELLE VUE
6
THE STARS WHOLE SECRET
8
KISS KISS SAID LOUISE BY WAY OF A PAY PHONE
9
THE DIARY OF A LOST GIRL
11
THE ANA OF BLISS
12
TRAVEL IS EASY BY TRAIN
42
A PORTRAIT OF LOVE
44
THE RAVEN FEEDS REYNARD
46
WHAT IS A MOUTH?
47
NIGHT FALLING FAST
48
DARK SMUDGED THE PATH UNTRAMMELED
50
A HURRICRANIUM HE SAID
52
CAPTIVITY
54

A CAKE OF NINETEEN SLICES
14
LOUISE
15
LIKE A FIRE IN A FIRE
16
DOES MRS HUNT TEAR LINEN STRAIGHT AS EVER?
17
TIME SPEEDS SAID LOUISE WHEN A FEVER RISES
18
LOUISE IN LOVE
19
OH DEAR WHAT CAN THE MATTER BE
21
THAT WAS ALL LOUISE SAID EXCEPT FOR
22
AND NO SIGN WILL MARK THE MIDPOINTS PASSING
23
SHE LOVED FALLING
25
TO SAVOR THE SEQUEL
27
TOO LATE LOUISE SAID MEANS
29
PRETTIPLEASE
31
YOU COULD SAY SHE WAS WILLFUL BUT COMPARED TO WHAT?
32
THE PENGUIN CHIAROSCURO
34
THE MEDICINAL COTTON CLOUDS COME DOWN TO COVER THEM
36
THE STORY OF SMALL CARS
37
LEXICON LOUISE
38
LOUISE SIGHS SUCH A LONG WINTER THIS
40
THEY CHIRP THEY WHISTLE AND WORDS
55
INCONSEQUENT MOMENT
57
ETCHED TETCHED TOUCHED
59
IN THE QUIETER AFTERMATH
61
A LITTLE MILLENNIAL DIRGE
62
RITUAL GESTURES
64
SO THIS
65
THE STILL KNIFE STILL SUSPENDED
66
ONE WITHOUT HAS TWO OR THREE WITHIN
67
2 TO RETAIN THE ARRANGEMENT
68
3 SHE WENT OUT INTO THE CLEAR COAST
69
4 EXQUISITE CORPSE
70
5 NIGHT AND NAIL
71
6 ENCHAINED
73
RAPTURED
74
O TRAUMA
77
INTERRUPTED BRIEFLY BY A BORROWED PHRASE THE SCENE PROCEEDS
79
THEY WERE THAT AND THEN
81
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