Swallows and Waves
Paula Bohince
(Author)
21,000+ Reviews
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Description
Equal parts ekphrasis and Rorschach test, Paula Bohince's third collection Swallows and Waves draws from a palette of Japanese scroll paintings and woodblock prints created centuries ago. Looking deeply into images of birds, animals, flowers, mothers, soldiers, and lovers, she returns with poems that risk everything in their transformation, reflecting loneliness and eros, doubt and reassurance.
Product Details
Price
$14.95
$13.90
Publisher
Sarabande Books
Publish Date
January 12, 2016
Pages
72
Dimensions
5.9 X 0.3 X 8.8 inches | 0.3 pounds
Language
English
Type
Paperback
EAN/UPC
9781941411155
BISAC Categories:
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About the Author
Paula Bohince is the author of The Children and Incident at the Edge of Bayonet Woods. Her poems have appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, Poetry, Granta, and elsewhere. She has received prizes from the Poetry Society of America and the UK National Poetry Competition, as well as the "Discovery"/The Nation Award.
Reviews
One of Eight Notable Titles for 2016, Pittsburgh City Paper "This collection of evocative poems brings to life a world long gone but resonant with our own. Each finely wrought poem reveals hidden depths upon rereading. One not to miss."
--Library Journal, starred review "Bohince's quiet revelations shed a strange, sometimes painful light on what seems familiar.... Bohince offers a discreet, surprising kind of ekphrasis."
--Publishers Weekly "A collection of surprising, almost concrete, coherence. The poems are invariably short; some vignettes are quickly sketched as if in watercolor, others more finely engraved; some poems hide a narrative, others an emotion. But most striking is that while the array of images is vast, they are tied together by a similar, stylistic sensibility."
--Asian Review of Books "Lithe and exacting, this collection draws inspiration from old Japanese woodblock prints and scroll paintings, resulting in lines at once visual and isolating."
--Foreword Reviews, "The Best Poetry of Winter 2016" "Each scroll and print is a scene, and from each Bohince designs a narrative, her lines heavy with precise detail, distinct motions, bare truths, and subtle wishes. Remote yet highly intimate, Swallows and Waves walks a neat path between secret and revelation."
--The Cincinnati Review "Ekphrasis seems too sharp a word...to describe the silky music of these elegantly balanced poems.... Many Western poets, from Ezra Pound to Gary Synder, have been hopelessly in love with Japanese culture and its exotic erotics, but Bohince joins the very best of writers who slide open the screens, fully aware there are other screens still concealing our deepest pleasures and pains."
--The Harvard Review "[Bohince] has a knack for startling lyricism and unusual images....Bohince's notebook of green observations and red feelings has yielded a collection of deeply sensuous poems--poems that ask us to look at the world anew."
--The Hudson Review
One of Eight Notable Titles for 2016, Pittsburgh City Paper "This collection of evocative poems brings to life a world long gone but resonant with our own. Each finely wrought poem reveals hidden depths upon rereading. One not to miss."
--Library Journal, starred review "Bohince's quiet revelations shed a strange, sometimes painful light on what seems familiar.... Bohince offers a discreet, surprising kind of ekphrasis."
--Publishers Weekly "A collection of surprising, almost concrete, coherence. The poems are invariably short; some vignettes are quickly sketched as if in watercolor, others more finely engraved; some poems hide a narrative, others an emotion. But most striking is that while the array of images is vast, they are tied together by a similar, stylistic sensibility."
--Asian Review of Books "Lithe and exacting, this collection draws inspiration from old Japanese woodblock prints and scroll paintings, resulting in lines at once visual and isolating."
--Foreword Reviews, "The Best Poetry of Winter 2016" "Each scroll and print is a scene, and from each Bohince designs a narrative, her lines heavy with precise detail, distinct motions, bare truths, and subtle wishes. Remote yet highly intimate, Swallows and Waves walks a neat path between secret and revelation."
--The Cincinnati Review "Ekphrasis seems too sharp a word...to describe the silky music of these elegantly balanced poems.... Many Western poets, from Ezra Pound to Gary Synder, have been hopelessly in love with Japanese culture and its exotic erotics, but Bohince joins the very best of writers who slide open the screens, fully aware there are other screens still concealing our deepest pleasures and pains."
--The Harvard Review "[Bohince] has a knack for startling lyricism and unusual images....Bohince's notebook of green observations and red feelings has yielded a collection of deeply sensuous poems--poems that ask us to look at the world anew."
--The Hudson Review "In these emotionally restrained lyrics, Bohince adeptly observes her own feelings as she sees them reflected in the Japanese scrolls she describes. These poems bear rereading in order to allow their delicate subtleties, like reflections on a still pond, to emerge. "
--The Hopkins Review
--Library Journal, starred review "Bohince's quiet revelations shed a strange, sometimes painful light on what seems familiar.... Bohince offers a discreet, surprising kind of ekphrasis."
--Publishers Weekly "A collection of surprising, almost concrete, coherence. The poems are invariably short; some vignettes are quickly sketched as if in watercolor, others more finely engraved; some poems hide a narrative, others an emotion. But most striking is that while the array of images is vast, they are tied together by a similar, stylistic sensibility."
--Asian Review of Books "Lithe and exacting, this collection draws inspiration from old Japanese woodblock prints and scroll paintings, resulting in lines at once visual and isolating."
--Foreword Reviews, "The Best Poetry of Winter 2016" "Each scroll and print is a scene, and from each Bohince designs a narrative, her lines heavy with precise detail, distinct motions, bare truths, and subtle wishes. Remote yet highly intimate, Swallows and Waves walks a neat path between secret and revelation."
--The Cincinnati Review "Ekphrasis seems too sharp a word...to describe the silky music of these elegantly balanced poems.... Many Western poets, from Ezra Pound to Gary Synder, have been hopelessly in love with Japanese culture and its exotic erotics, but Bohince joins the very best of writers who slide open the screens, fully aware there are other screens still concealing our deepest pleasures and pains."
--The Harvard Review "[Bohince] has a knack for startling lyricism and unusual images....Bohince's notebook of green observations and red feelings has yielded a collection of deeply sensuous poems--poems that ask us to look at the world anew."
--The Hudson Review
One of Eight Notable Titles for 2016, Pittsburgh City Paper "This collection of evocative poems brings to life a world long gone but resonant with our own. Each finely wrought poem reveals hidden depths upon rereading. One not to miss."
--Library Journal, starred review "Bohince's quiet revelations shed a strange, sometimes painful light on what seems familiar.... Bohince offers a discreet, surprising kind of ekphrasis."
--Publishers Weekly "A collection of surprising, almost concrete, coherence. The poems are invariably short; some vignettes are quickly sketched as if in watercolor, others more finely engraved; some poems hide a narrative, others an emotion. But most striking is that while the array of images is vast, they are tied together by a similar, stylistic sensibility."
--Asian Review of Books "Lithe and exacting, this collection draws inspiration from old Japanese woodblock prints and scroll paintings, resulting in lines at once visual and isolating."
--Foreword Reviews, "The Best Poetry of Winter 2016" "Each scroll and print is a scene, and from each Bohince designs a narrative, her lines heavy with precise detail, distinct motions, bare truths, and subtle wishes. Remote yet highly intimate, Swallows and Waves walks a neat path between secret and revelation."
--The Cincinnati Review "Ekphrasis seems too sharp a word...to describe the silky music of these elegantly balanced poems.... Many Western poets, from Ezra Pound to Gary Synder, have been hopelessly in love with Japanese culture and its exotic erotics, but Bohince joins the very best of writers who slide open the screens, fully aware there are other screens still concealing our deepest pleasures and pains."
--The Harvard Review "[Bohince] has a knack for startling lyricism and unusual images....Bohince's notebook of green observations and red feelings has yielded a collection of deeply sensuous poems--poems that ask us to look at the world anew."
--The Hudson Review "In these emotionally restrained lyrics, Bohince adeptly observes her own feelings as she sees them reflected in the Japanese scrolls she describes. These poems bear rereading in order to allow their delicate subtleties, like reflections on a still pond, to emerge. "
--The Hopkins Review
