Half Wild: Poems (Walt Whitman Award)
(Part of the Walt Whitman Award of the Academy of American Poets Series)
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Book Overview
Winner of the 2005 Walt Whitman Award of The Academy of American Poets " O'Reilley's is] a style that celebrates . . . that mystery we call the soul. That part of us that is of another world, come perhaps to instruct us in this one" -Mary Oliver, from her judge's citation Half Wild is spiritual biography wound backwards, spiraling into the world rather than out of it. Though it reflects on the paradoxes of our violent times, Mary Rose O'Reilley's collection hangs on to life like the bee "up to his hips in love" who "will fall asleep in the snow" and "wake up still kissing his flower." In O'Reilley's poems, human, animal, and mineral creations interpenetrate and share surreal conversation-even stones exchange stories of "hot times in the magma" and animals are listened to intently. Here sacred inquiry is grounded in a passion for the natural world, resolving questions through lyric, erotic, and sensual response. The poems of Half Wild revel in desire and longing as instruments of theological critique.
Format:Paperback
Language:English
ISBN:0807131628
ISBN13:9780807131626
Release Date:April 2006
Publisher:LSU Press
Length:72 Pages
Weight:0.25 lbs.
Dimensions:0.3" x 5.5" x 9.3"
Customer Reviews
1 rating
Half Wild?--Mary O'Reilley shows us how to remember
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 16 years ago
With the economy of a haiku and a magnanimity only the bravest can approach, Mary O'Reilley has thrown a rope ladder all the way down to the nethermost part of us that for so long we tried to pretend wasn't there. This gorgeous, prize-winning, indispensible collection features spare but generous trips into the natural and human world that offer means for our battered, humiliated spirit to catch a toe hold.
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