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ISBN 9780978600907 "Two
American poets named E.A. Robinson are 'in different ways' here in this
single book, though one died before the other was born. What we have
is, in fact, an extended example of the bout rimé, that restraint well
known and widely practiced many years before the Oulipo. The end rhymes
are by the author of 'Richard Cory' and 'Miniver Cheevy' (neither of
these, I think, among the chosen), each line then, up to the rhyme
word, supplied by the later, very alive, E.A. If you’re inclined to
distrust such a trick, disregard it; you’ve come upon a good book of
poems." "Herein,
Elizabeth Ann Robinson inhabits the end rhymes of Edwin Arlington
Robinson, entering the cochlea of his ear. She haunts the structure of
his verse, a new tenant in his house on the hill: 'Eternity/will
tolerate some misappropriations.' Her method merges what we
inherit—from family, from poetry—with what we find for ourselves, the
distant past with the day’s concerns. Among other things, that’s the
crux of growing up: 'Consistency and mistrust/fight it out.' Like talk
around the kitchen table at dusk, these poems bring it all to oblique
light." "Borrowed words
as scaffolding, life as bridge, these poems shine with the numinous:
babies, bodies, belief. 'So rough/on the fractious skin I’ve set/
around myself.' A work that is purposeful and powerful, as 'Breath and
water disappear//into knowledge.'"
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