The Quotation of Bone
A poetry collection that moves between historical imagery and imaginative association to explore violence, memory, and compassion. Its vivid sense of color and language stands out.
Work Information
A poetry collection that joins history and imagination to rethink compassion.
The Quotations of Bone combines Norman Dubie's rich imagination with sharp observation. Distant history and personal sensation come together within a single rhythm.
Book Information
- Publisher
- Copper Canyon Pr
- Published
- 2015-06-16
- Pages
- 117 pages
- Language
- 英語
- Size
- 15.24 x 1.27 x 22.86 cm
- ISBN-13
- 9781556594830
- ISBN-10
- 1556594836
- Price
- 8895 JPY
- Category
- 洋書/Literature & Fiction/Poetry/American
Winner of the 2016 Griffin International Poetry Prize "Norman Dubie is one of our premier poets."— The New York Times "Dubie's poems are unmatched in their incandescent imaginings, gorgeous language, and fearless tracking of the inexorably turning wheel of existence."— Booklist "Dubie [is] one of the most powerful and influential American poets."— The Washington Post “The poems in Dubie&;s newest collection [ The Quotations of Bone ] are deeply oneiric, governed by vigorous leaping energy that brings the intimate into contact with history, and blurs the distinction between what is real because it once happened, and what is real because of the emphatic manner in which it has been felt. Longtime admirers of Dubie will certainly recognize the familiar mind and spirit able to punch through the surface of experience and into deep psychic quandary with a single revelatory gesture (Did you ever want to give someone // All your money?)-but that tendency is greatly amplified here. One feels the unconscious mind working ceaselessly, even playfully, alongside memory, imparting the poems as if with a strange and consoling living spirit. This makes for a heightened sense of mystery and mortality in poems of private experience. And when such an impulse is aligned with public history—the division of Germany, say, or the acceleration of the planet&;s ecological crisis—it is outright haunting. Dubie&;s uncontested mastery of the lyric poem has, in this collection, broken into strange and revelatory territory.&;—Griffin International Poetry Prize Judges&; Citation In his twenty-ninth collection of poems, Norman Dubie returns to a rich, color-soaked vision of the world. Strangeness becomes a parable for compassion, each poem leading the reader to an uncommon way of understanding human capacities. In the futuristic sphere of The Quotation of Bone , the mind wanders meditatively into an imaginative and uncontainable history. The Quotations of Bone The meal of bone was a soured milk— just the heads of giant elk in a dark circle looking down on a wooden bowl of soda crackers and pork. One large knife resting in the meat of a woodsman's calloused hand. He grins at his woman who is slowly poisoning him with the stringy resins of morning glory. A tasteless turpentine with pink pig. The speeches of bone are matrimonial in early autumn— by January there's a froth of blood at a nostril. He thinks a long icicle is buried in his ear. She thinks D. H. Lawrence was a grim buccaneer. I hate most men. Adore the few named Lou. One small addendum: the dead elk are grinning too. Norman Dubie is a Regents professor at Arizona State University. He lives in Tempe, Arizona.
Norman Dubie: Norman Dubie was born in Barre, Vermont in April 1945. His poems have appeared in many magazines including The American Poetry Review, Bombay Gin, Crazy Horse, Gulf Coast, Narrative, The New Yorker, Paris Review, and Poetry. He has won the Bess Hokin Award of the Modern Poetry Association and fellowships from the Ingram Merrill Foundation, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts. The Mercy Seat: Collected and New Poems won the PEN Center USA prize for best poetry collection in 2002. He has published with Blackbird, a book-length futuristic work, The Spirit Tablets at Goa Lake. His most recent collection, The Quotations of Bone, is from Copper Canyon Press. He lives in Tempe, Arizona, and is a teacher at Arizona State University.
Reviews
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This year, Canada’s Griffin Prize – International Award was given to American Norman Dubie for his “The Quotations of Bone,” published in 2015. Dubie, who is Regents Professor of English at Arizona State University, is one of America’s distinguished poets, with some 16 previous published collections. No matter what his subject in this new collection, whether politics, nature, relationships, or even British Petroleum, his imagery is jarring, demanding the poem be read closely, carefully, and (preferably) aloud. Here is the title poem from the collection, and be prepared for the imagery and metaphors. The Quotations of Bone The meal of bone was a soured milk— just the heads of giant elk in a dark circle looking down on a wooden bowl of soda crackers and pork. One large knife resting in the meat of a woodsman’s calloused hand, He grins at his woman who is slowly poisoning him with the stringy resins of morning glory. A tasteless turpentine with pink pig. The speeches of bone are matrimonial in early autumn— by January there’s a froth of blood at a nostril. He thinks a long icicle is buried in his ear. She thinks D.H. Lawrence was a grim buccaneer. I hate most men. Adore the few named Lou. One small addendum: the dead elk are grinning too. The Quotations of Bone is a collection that simply can’t be read hurriedly, but slowly and with concentration. The reward will be gratifying for the reader. Dubie’s previous poetry collections include "Popham of the New Song" (1975); "In the Dead of the Night" (1976); "The Illustrations" (1977); "City of the Olesha Fruit" (1979); "The Everlastings" (1980); "Selected and New Poems" (1983); "The Springhouse" (1986); "Groom Falconer" (1990); "The Clouds of Magellan" (1991); "Radio Sky" (1992); "The Mercy Seat: New and Collected Poems 1967-2001" (2004); "Ordinary Mornings of a Coliseum" (2004); "Insomniac Liar of Topo" (2007); "Alehouse Sonnets" (2009); and "The Volcano" (2010). He received his MFA degree from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. “The Quotations of Bone” is both a startling and rewarding collection.
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The Quotations of Bone is a play of the phrase bone meal as bone and meal, companion piece to the poem entitled The Quotations of Meat, both titles punning the title of Quotations of Chairman Mao. most of the other titles in this collection appear incongruous to the meat and bone, and speech, of the poem attached. the poems are word associations and free associations stitched together by shifting meanings of similar words or phrases and colors to create dream pictures and historical-literary collages. ensconced with books and a febrile imagination, son of a nurse, dubie finds fever and illnesses in wintry countries around the globe. dubie is native to northern new england, where the winters are snowbound and conducive to cabin fever, which favored the strophes of many poets from whittier to frost. poets feature in several poems, including one about john berryman. always expect osip mandelstam, a familiar from previous collections, to make an appearance. Tiflis, July 1931 So Mandelstam would grow oranges in a glacier. I can hear his cough beyond the drifting snow. then there are dubie’s surreal descriptions of nature. in Speech and the Paraclete’s Mouse, a sunset becomes: The fleshy orangutan sun dropping its summons to play billiards in an open-air theater of boiling macaroni and barbeque. in Winter’s Grosse Fuge, note how he fuses these devices, and with homage to hitchcock, who believed where there is snow blood must be close. The sunset wind lifts the snow back on its haunches like the wolves. V An old maestro says that in his green chest wolves are feeding on carrion. he is happy to have reached the wilderness. He asks if it is a strawberry soda-crème, lowing suds of oxygen in the blood of his nose. often dubie’s subject matter is somber, and yet it is for his linguistic play he’s read. aural pun noted.
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I purchased this book because of a daily poem of his that I received in my email. I wasn't familiar with Dubie prior to that and was intrigued. Although I enjoyed The Quotations of Bone, none of the poems lived up to the promise of the daily poem that initiated my interest. Still, I'm glad to have him in my poetry library. He's an excellent poet and more than worth owning.