Published in 1997
71 pages
Mary Jo Bang grew up in St. Louis and was educated at Northwestern University, Westminster University (London), and Columbia University. In 1995, she received a Discovery/The Nation award. She is poetry co-editor at the Boston Review.
What is this book about?
These difficult, allusive poems won the 1996 Bakeless Prize, awarded by Middlebury College and the publisher for a first book by an emerging writer. Intelligent yet insular, the title poem makes a case for art as the attempted fulfillment of spiritual desire, distinguishable from animal desire in that it can never be satisfied. There are strains of John Ashberry in the chord changes here: “I know I stand for too long, gazing / with wistful face at the muted tints of objects / on shelves. How smart we are all getting.” Part 2 (there are four parts) escapes from the self-referential world of poems about poetry into the operating room, where the narrator, presumably a doctor or medical student, lances the abcess on an addict’s arm. And it is here that the book comes to life; the next poem uses punning wordplay to transform an observed open-heart surgery into a brilliant gloss on the human condition.
