The Uses of the Body (e-book) (used book) | Deborah Landau | bookbook.eu

Description

Deborah Landau's Uses of the Body presents the very specific challenges of womanhood. Her poems address what it means to be alive—right now—in a female body. She fills her poetry with compelling nouns: wine glasses, bridal gowns, and "books and teacups and ghosts." And what ghosts: underneath evocative images and poetic play, there's a moving, yearning mysticism.

From "Mr and Mrs End of Suffering":

The uses of the body are wake up.
The uses of the body, illusion.

The uses of the body. Rinse repeat.
To make another body.

September. Draw the blanket up.
Lace your shoes.

The major and minor passions. Sunlight. Hair.

The basic pleasures. Tomatoes, Keats, meeting a smart man for a drink.

The uses of the body.
It is only a small house. It gets older.

Its upper and lower.
Its red and white trim.

It's tempting to gloss over this part,
so you won't really see me.