Join us on a literary world trip!
Add this book to bookshelf
Grey
Write a new comment Default profile 50px
Grey
Subscribe to read the full book or read the first pages for free!
I want to read the book!
All characters reduced
The Most Charming Creatures - Poems - cover

The Most Charming Creatures - Poems

Gary Barwin

Publisher: ECW Press

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

Summary

With uncanny wit, inventive beauty, and numinous surprise, The Most Charming Creatures explores the contemporary and its language, considering our wonder, sorrow, bewilderment, anxiety, and tenderness. While these poems energize and connect and “turn the paren- / theses inside out so that / we mean everything,” they are also alive to the alluring complicity of language and its duplicity and deceptions. “This is the way the world ends / Not with a bang but / while we watch.”
		 
A follow-up to the award-winning author’s acclaimed selected poems, this new collection continues Barwin’s examination of the possibilities of the poem: a celebration, a story, an investigation, a riff, a word machine, a parable, a transformation. But what are the “most charming creatures” of the title? In 1862, scientific illustrator Ernst Haeckel termed radiolarians (ancient single-celled organisms with mineral skeletons) “the most charming creatures,” but here Barwin turns the microscope around to consider something just as strange and mysterious: language, our culture, and the self. From microorganisms, onion rings, grief, and Gerard Manley Hopkins to beetles, neoliberalism, sandwiches, Martin Luther, and stand-up comedy, he offers: “it’s a miracle that we’ve survived / it’s a miracle that we’ve survived at all.”
Available since: 09/20/2022.
Print length: 128 pages.

Other books that might interest you

  • Where Go the Boats - cover

    Where Go the Boats

    Robert Louis Stevenson

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0 
    Where Go the Boats is a short poem by Robert Louis Stevenson. He was a Scottish author famous for writing Treasure Island. He also wrote many poems, including this one, which was published in A Child's Garden of Verses.(Summary by Sweet Pea)Some comments from our readers.."I hope my recording floats your boat." - Assaf"Help prevent toy loss, tie boat to dock after play." - Bruce"I conceive that this simple little verse is about time and writing. Of course, it may just be about little boats." - Jason
    Show book
  • The Top 10 Poets – Massachussetts - Five poems each from the best poets born in Massachussetts - cover

    The Top 10 Poets –...

    Emily Dickinson, Edgar Allan...

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0 
    The language of Poetry is an art that most of us attempt at some point in our lives.  Although its commonplace exposure has been somewhat marginalised in today’s often fast-paced lives we all recognise good verse that can empathise with our thoughts or open us up to experience new things in new ways, to better understand and to enjoy the many strands of our lives. 
But finding a starting point can be overwhelming, even off-putting, so in this series we offer up our Top 10 classic poets, who brim with talent and verse, on a range of subjects and themes that we can all enjoy. 
The United States may be far younger than many nations on Earth, yet its tumultuous history has reaped a harvest of poets and poetry of very fine calibre.  In this volume we explore the verse of Massachusetts.
    Show book
  • Human Collateral - cover

    Human Collateral

    Tanya Hilson

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0 
    Millicent Brown is not the perfect mother, as she rents out her Chicago apartment to drug dealers as a trap house. However, when a deal goes wrong with one of her dealers, Mill is arrested as she watches the Director of the Department of Children and Family Services, Mrs. Ross, take her children away. 
While it is Ms. Ross's responsibility to make sure these children are taken care of, Mrs. Ross instead starts orchestrating the sale of Mill's two children. 
Will Mill be vindicated, or will she be lost in the system forever?
    Show book
  • Whaling Town - Poems - cover

    Whaling Town - Poems

    David Parker Allen

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0 
    This is a place you never hear about in America... 
A unique American collection of poetry, Whaling Town explores the rough work of self-realization and the roots that anchor us to the unsteady ground of our past.  
Facing a turning point in his life, David Parker Allen began traversing the landscape of the United States, researching and writing music and assembling the bones of a collection of poetry. His journey led him through a personal family immigrant story in New Bedford, Massachusetts—the whaling town Melville made famous—to small communities across the Mississippi Delta and deep South, Gulf Coast, and Mountain West, as well as the streets of Chicago and New York. Jumping from rural America to urban hubs and back, Whaling Town tells a story of place and people in a gritty world that’s both in and out of our control. 
With clear-eyed observations and gentle musicality, Allen takes stock of the burden of our collective history and looks directly into passing storms that we each must face alone. When the skies clear, how do we come to terms with self and our place in this world, and what do we build from the wreckage?
    Show book
  • Reunion - cover

    Reunion

    Mark O'Rowe

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0 
    A family gathers for a celebration on an island off the west coast of Ireland. When an unexpected visitor drops by, tensions begin to surface. Over the next twenty-four hours, scores will be settled, beliefs challenged and truths disclosed, ultimately jeopardising their entire future together.
Mark O'Rowe turns his laser focus on the deep currents of family life with a masterfully orchestrated drama which resonates with biting humour, profound insights and extraordinary authenticity.
An exhilarating, high-wire ensemble piece, Reunion was first produced by Landmark Productions and Galway International Arts Festival in 2024, directed by O'Rowe himself.
    Show book
  • Short Story Press Presents Agent Romanov - cover

    Short Story Press Presents Agent...

    Short Story Press, Natashiah Jansen

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0 
    Brigitte had a rough start in life. It all began when her village was bombed when she was just a child. After being sent to the USA by a refugee agency, she drifted from one foster home to another for some time. In her pursuit to find the sense of family she is recruited by the Russian mob, where she meets up with an old friend. The mob offered them everything except freedom. She wanted more. She changes her name and makes a new life for herself. She meets Martin who makes her an offer that was hard to refuse. Everything went well until she falls in love. In an effort to get information she makes a deal with a devil called Olga, the wife of the Russian mob boss. 
Her past comes to haunt her and almost takes the life of her lover. In an effort to protect her love she betrays Martin. Just when she thought everything was going her way, Olga surprises her with a special request to prove her loyalty. At first she hesitates but keeping her love alive was more important. Everything was perfect until she receives a phone call that would change her whole life. 
Short Story Press publishes short stories written by everyday writers.
    Show book