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Title details for frank: sonnets by Diane Seuss - Available

frank: sonnets

by Diane Seuss
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A resplendent life in sonnets from the author of Four-Legged Girl, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize
"The sonnet, like poverty, teaches you what you can do / without," Diane Seuss writes in this brilliant, candid work, her most personal collection to date. These poems tell the story of a life at risk of spilling over the edge of the page, from Seuss's working-class childhood in rural Michigan to the dangerous allures of New York City and back again. With sheer virtuosity, Seuss moves nimbly across thought and time, poetry and punk, AIDS and addiction, Christ and motherhood, showing us what we can do, what we can do without, and what we offer to one another when we have nothing left to spare. Like a series of cels on a filmstrip, frank: sonnets captures the magnitude of a life lived honestly, a restless search for some kind of "beauty or relief." Seuss is at the height of her powers, devastatingly astute, austere, and—in a word—frank.

  • Creators

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  • Release date

    March 2, 2021

  • Formats

    • Kindle Book

    • OverDrive Read

      • ISBN: 9781644451410

    • EPUB ebook

      • ISBN: 9781644451410
      • File size: 3839 KB

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Library Journal

      February 1, 2021

      If there's one sentiment unifying this latest collection of free-verse sonnets from Seuss (Still Life with Two Dead Peacocks and a Girl), it's her sense of alienation. As she notes in one poem, the nuns thought she "was odd and tried to foist me off/ on the Buddhists." In another poem, she mentions not having an "origin story, no soul." Another poem speaks ironically of being uncomfortable in her apartment with a dishwasher, while elsewhere she wonders whether everything is an apparition. Several poems remember her family, her grandfather's barber shop, and her great-grandmother or allude to the death of her father. Some have religious implications. Spinning these topics in a Jackson Pollack style, Seuss writes a stream-of-consciousness verse, with fragments rambling from one subject to another. VERDICT All in all, there's an awareness of the poet being separated--suggesting that she's writing the poem as a way to connect to absent loved ones--perhaps her son who lives far away from her, or her former lover, or departed family members, or even her own self. But is she? It's hard to pin down the meaning of a Seuss poem, which adds a certain pleasing sense of mystery to the best work here. --C. Diane Scharper, Johns Hopkins Univ., Baltimore, MD

      Copyright 2021 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Formats

  • Kindle Book
  • OverDrive Read
  • EPUB ebook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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