Strange Hymn : Poems

Carlene Kucharczyk

ISBN 10: 1625348649 / ISBN 13: 9781625348647

Verlag: University Of Massachusetts Press Apr 2025, 2025

Beschreibung

Neuware - "I ll tell you everything I know. Though there might not be much to tell," confesses the speaker in Strange Hymn by Carlene Kucharczyk, in a meticulously crafted lyrical journey exploring morality and humanity. The poems here grapple with understanding physical loss: "I wanted / to know once and definitively our animal bodies / were not all we were. It is shameful to be this fragile." They also engage with the more abstract slipping away of memory and time: "Since I was born, I have been forgetting. Forgetting what I have wanted to remember." Kucharczyk s insightful poems blur the lines between history and myth, love and grief, song and silence. Caught between lamenting the passage of time and rejoicing in small beauties, she writes, "I tell you, I wish we could stay here longer / in this hotel of lost grandeur, this palace of interesting disarray, / and stay here with these pieces of the impersonal past / that have somehow not yet outlasted their small lights." Each moment reflects on our ephemeral lives from musings on art and nature to reflections on the self, asking "Is a mirror a sort of glass house / And, is there a way to see ourselves besides through the glass " As readers traverse this collection, they learn how the body sings, the many iterations of Mary, what sirens truly think of Odysseus, how a Morning Glory unfurls, and lessons in orthodontics, but most importantly, how to live with absence. Kucharczyk is a master of manipulating time and space through her dynamic use of form, creating a narrative that begs, "After I m gone, don t bury my body / Burn it, and turn it into song.".

Bestandsnummer des Verkäufers 9781625348647

Bibliografische Details

• Titel: Strange Hymn : Poems
• Verlag: University Of Massachusetts Press Apr 2025
• Erscheinungsjahr: 2025
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN-10: 1625348649
• ISBN-13: 9781625348647
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Zustand: Neu
• Abmessungen: 206B x 135 H x 8 T Millimeter Breite: 206 mm, Höhe: 135 mm, Tiefe: 8 mm
• Gewicht: 113 Gramm

Über diesen Titel

Inhaltsangabe

“I’ll tell you everything I know. Though there might not be much to tell,” confesses the speaker in Strange Hymn by Carlene Kucharczyk, in a meticulously crafted lyrical journey exploring morality and humanity. The poems here grapple with understanding physical loss: “I wanted / to know once and definitively our animal bodies / were not all we were. It is shameful to be this fragile.” They also engage with the more abstract slipping away of memory and time: “Since I was born, I have been forgetting. Forgetting what I have wanted to remember.” Kucharczyk’s insightful poems blur the lines between history and myth, love and grief, song and silence.  

Caught between lamenting the passage of time and rejoicing in small beauties, she writes, “I tell you, I wish we could stay here longer / in this hotel of lost grandeur, this palace of interesting disarray, / and stay here with these pieces of the impersonal past / that have somehow not yet outlasted their small lights.” Each moment reflects on our ephemeral lives from musings on art and nature to reflections on the self, asking “Is a mirror a sort of glass house? / And, is there a way to see ourselves besides through the glass?”  

As readers traverse this collection, they learn how the body sings, the many iterations of Mary, what sirens truly think of Odysseus, how a Morning Glory unfurls, and lessons in orthodontics, but most importantly, how to live with absence. Kucharczyk is a master of manipulating time and space through her dynamic use of form, creating a narrative that begs, “After I’m gone, don’t bury my body― / Burn it, and turn it into song.”

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Carlene Kucharczyk’s writing has appeared in literary journals such as Poetry Northwest, Mid-American Review, Tupelo Quarterly, Green Mountains Review, and Conduit, and has received a Pushcart nomination.