Is, Is Not: Poems

Synopsis

S, Is Not Upends Our Notions Of Linear Time, Evokes The Spirit And Sanctity Of Place, And Hovers Daringly At The Threshold Of What Language Can Nearly Deliver While Offering Alternative Corollaries As Gifts Of Its Failures. Tess Gallagher’s Poems Reverberate With The Inward Clarity Of A Bell Struck On A Mountaintop. Guided By Humor, Grace, And A Deep Inquiry Into The Natural World, Every Poem Nudges Us Toward Moments Of Awe. How Else Except By Delight And Velocity Would We Discover The Miracle Within The Ordinary? Gallagher Claims Many Wests—the Northwest Of America, The Northwest Of Ireland, And A West Even Further To The Edge, Beyond The Physical. These Landscapes Are Charged With Invisible Energies And Inhabited By The People, Living And Dead, Who Shape Gallagher’s Poems And Life. Restorative In Every Sense, Is, Is Not Is The Kind Of Book That Takes A Lifetime To Write—a Book Of The Spirit Made Manifest By The Poet’s Unrelenting Gaze And Her Intimate Engagement With The Mysteries That Keep Us Reaching. --publisher Recognition -- I. In The Company Of Flowers -- Almost Lost Moment -- Ambition -- Your Dog Playing With A Coyote -- Ability To Hold Territory -- Blind Dog/seeing Girl -- Doe Browsing Salal Berries -- Ii. Little Inside Out Dream -- Dream Cancel -- Stolen Dress -- Glass Impresses -- Hummingbird-mind -- One Deer At Dusk -- Iii. Correction -- Sully -- Retroactive Father -- Earth -- The Seemingly Domesticated -- Reaching -- Right-minded Person -- In The Too-bright Café -- Iv. Let's Store These Hours -- Season Of Burnt-out Candelabras -- The Branches Of The Maple -- Yet To Be Born Weather -- I Want To Be Loved Like Somebody's Beloved Dog In America -- While I Was Away -- V. Without -- Deer Path Enigma -- The Favorite Cup -- What Does It Say -- Vi. Bus To Belfast -- Is, Is Not -- As The Diamond -- During The Montenegrin Poetry Reading -- Curfew -- Eddie's Steps -- Four-footed -- The Gold Dust Of The Linden Trees -- Blue Eyelid Lifting -- Vii. Button, Button -- Breath -- To An Irishman Painting In The Rain -- Encounter -- Planet Greece -- Cloud-path -- Viii. Oliver -- A Sit With Eileen -- Remembering Each Other While Together -- Opening -- Word Of Mouth -- Daylong Visitor -- Caress -- March Moon -- Three Stars -- Afterword. Writing From The Edge: A Poet Of Two Northwests. Tess Gallagher.