Title: The wise and foolish builders : poems /
Authors: Teague, Alexandra, 1974-
Year: 2015
Subjects: Winchester, Sarah Pardee, Poetry.; Winchester Mystery House (San Jose, Calif.) Poetry.
Abstract: "This chilling collection by the author of Mortal Geography (winner of the California Book Award in poetry) is a verse exploration of American progress and its consequences, featuring rifle heiress Sarah Winchester and her unsettling Mystery House, with cameos by Harry Houdini, Annie Oakley, Calamity Jane, Buffalo Bill and many other fascinating figures. Steeped in history yet wildly imaginative, these poems commune with Winchester’s haunted legacy and that of westward expansion, connecting voices from a troubled past with their irrepressible present-day echoes. The Wise and Foolish Builders is an unmistakable accomplishment by a poet of remarkable formal skill and fantastic originality"--Publisher's website.
Contents: Claims -- Repeater -- Artizan Street, New Haven, 1850s: Sarah Winchester reflects -- The house that doesn't grow -- Claims -- Rehearsed by sorrows -- How it happened -- Range -- Stereoscope: Annie Oakley and Sarah Winchester -- The house that doesn't grow -- Sarah Winchester, 46 years dead, talks to Andy Warhol -- Claims -- Fortune -- The door to nowhere -- Claims -- Clue -- The journalists set the record straight on Sarah Winchester -- American progress -- Buffalo Bill's Wild West -- Ammunition: or Sarah Winchester, 23 years dead, and my grandmother, newly widowed, speak -- Safe as houses -- The feet of ghosts -- Command performance -- Transcontinental -- Port of Oakland -- L.C. Smith and Bros., makers of fine guns and typewriters, advertise -- The barbed wire bible -- Reconstruction -- Spirtualists' inquiries unmasked: or Kate and Margaret Fox, accused of fradulent communication with the dead, respond, 1860 -- Sand Creek testimony -- Elizabeth "Plinky" Topperwein, champion markswoman, remembers -- Many a goat -- Widowed -- My mother reads to her daughters: Great Expectations -- Stereoscope: California -- The door to nowhere -- Ghost tours: Houdini -- John Brown, first proprietor of the Winchester Mystery House, explains, 1926 -- Calamity Jane, somewhat inebriated, thinks of writing to Oliver Winchester -- Ghost tours: Diamond Bessie, 1877 -- How it happened -- Ghost tours: Asphodel Plantation, 1975 -- Sarah Winchester, 23 years dead, goes to the movies: House of Dracula -- Sarah Winchester reads Great Expectations -- B. Tyler Henry -- Whole cloth -- Bison Bison -- The general store proprietor -- Winchester .351 high-power self-loading rifle -- The blueprint.