Reversing the Spell
Subtitle: New and Selected Poems
Publisher: Copper Canyon Press
Published: February 1998
Language: eng
Format: Paperback
Number of pages: 341
ISBN-13: 9781556590825
Subjects: American Contemporary Poetry; Poetry; American - General; Poetry / General
First sentence: In the old paintings, the ones with silken oils whose vistas opened like a long hall to the eye; the Virgin with her glowing skin, the child in her arms, formed a perfect triangle - the art historians always made a point of that: God in Euclid's arms, the blue satin shawl and temporary flesh fit in the pyramid of faith exactly: abstract and equilateral; the baby held in her painted lap, fattened for sacrifice; while in the streets, blood ran, and skinny dogs prowled the greasy cobblestones; monthly, the women wore, then washed the red-stained rags, and the candles in the church flickered under the bloodless Lady with her lovely face, under the nailed-up man, the body's long disgrace impaled naked on the crossroads of the grid.