Nautilus and Bone
- Publisher
- Frontenac House Ltd.
- Initial publish date
- Nov 2020
- Category
- Canadian
-
Paperback / softback
- ISBN
- 9781989466124
- Publish Date
- Nov 2020
- List Price
- $19.95
Add it to your shelf
Where to buy it
Description
Nautilus and Bone chronicles the life and work of the radical, passionate Russian-Jewish American poet Anna Margolin on her path toward self-determination. Blending myth, surrealism, historical fact and fiction, this collection of persona poems brings to life one of the most celebrated Yiddish poets of her generation.
Winner of the National Jewish Book Award for Poetry
About the author
Lisa Richter is the author of a book of poetry, Closer to Where We Began (Tightrope Books, 2017). Her work has previously appeared in The New Quarterly, CV2, The Puritan, The Malahat Review, Literary Review of Canada and the anthology Jack Layton: Art in Action (Quattro Books, 2013). Her next collection of poems, Nautilus and Bone, is forthcoming with Frontenac House in fall 2020. She lives in Toronto.
Excerpt: Nautilus and Bone (by (author) Lisa Richter)
FRINGE
Chaim paraphrases Marx, quoting Hegel:
all great world events and personages occur twice
the first time as Gothic, the second as farce.
How intricate this pleasure of naming
the void my heart intuits, cavorting
with East Side intelligentsia
who might take me for vapid waif
until they see me grind
men’s arguments down to their very dregs
so delicious their sputtering:
Oh my dear Miss Lebensboym, but we do need women
in our movement, who else to speak to domestic concerns?
Amid lampshades fringed with indecency
for lowered gazes we quaff coffee and schnapps
until the sun revolts
against midnight’s chloroform.
A burgundy chaise absorbs my limbs.
Women smoking filthy cigarettes caress me
with their ungloved fingers, whispering
of unexpected softness.
