Wild Tongue

Front Cover
Copper Canyon Press, 2007 - Poetry - 203 pages

"With a bitter and withering irony and an eye for shocking beauty . . . Seiferle cuts straight to the emotionally honest kernel within family, spirit and myth."--Publishers Weekly

Poet Rebecca Seiferle once said that "one should always read a poem as if it was a matter of life and death." Seiferle's fourth book of poems, Wild Tongue, suggests a similar belief about writing poems.

The tongue is both voice and body, and Wild Tongue rages against these global bits, bridles, and palliatives that attempt to calm and control. Combining shocking beauty and compelling directness, Seiferle counterbalances divorce and domestic violence with newfound love and cathartic wit. Her poems, like cave drawings, are inspired by urgency and concern, working into the cracks and contours of truth and wound. "The human voice on the edge of extinction," she writes, "and on that edge, everything wild, unspoken, vital and living, begins to speak out."

From "The Too Long Married Woman":

So, it came to this, she could barely bear
to be touched, though she was glad for that
moment in the kitchen, tense with containers,
scrapings of delicacies adhering, floating
in the sink, and the other woman who turned and walked toward
her, holding out her arms, extended
from her shoulders, those most human wings,
to gather her up . . .

Rebecca Seiferle is the editor of the online journal Drunken Boat and has published six volumes of poetry and translation. She lives in Tucson, Arizona.

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Contents

The wild is not destitute of flavor
3
Black Water
6
The Social Kiss
7
Copyright

69 other sections not shown

Common terms and phrases

ancient angels animal appear arms beautiful become beginning beneath blood blue body breaking breath bright caught child cloud cold color dark dead death depths desire distant dreaming drift earth edge everything face falling fear feeling felt field fingers fire flesh flowers gaze give green hair hand happy head heart holding human it's keep kind kiss knew language leaves light lips living look lost meadow meant mind morning mother mouth move never night once one's perhaps Poems poet poetry Press remember riding rising seemed shape side singing sitting skin smile someone song soul sound speaking strange sweet tears tell thing thought tiny tongue touch translated tree trying turn voice wake wild wings woman wound writing

About the author (2007)

Rebecca Seiferle is the author of four books of poems and two volumes of translations of Cesar Vallejo. She is Lannan Fellow, editor of the online magazine The Drunken Boat, and recently taught at Brown University. She lives in Tucson, Arizona.

Bibliographic information

TitleWild Tongue
Lannan Literary Selections
AuthorRebecca Seiferle
PublisherCopper Canyon Press, 2007
Original fromthe University of Michigan
DigitizedMay 30, 2008
ISBN1556592620, 9781556592621
Length203 pages
Subjects ›  › 

Poetry / American / General
Poetry / General
  
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