Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611

  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
A Dangerous Place

A Dangerous Place

Desautels, Chelsea B.

Paperback

General Poetry

Publisher Price: $15.95

ISBN10: 1946448869
ISBN13: 9781946448866
Publisher: Sarabande Books
Published: Oct 19 2021
Pages: 72
Weight: 0.35
Height: 0.40 Width: 6.40 Depth: 8.90
Language: English

Early in her powerful, affecting debut, Desautels writes: I always mention gratitude because/people like that ending. Unflinching in its candor, this is the story of a woman with two swellings in her belly: a nascent baby, and a cancerous tumor. The poet could focus on the particulars of the medical case, using language from a traditional illness narrative. Instead she gives us the basics, then gathers up surprising and expansive material from various landscapes--the Black Hills, the prairies of Texas, the mountains, switchgrass, and, especially, the neighboring buffalo, to which she feels a profound connection. Desautels' metaphors strike home; they are counterpoints, balm to the uncertainty and grief that make us uncomfortable. The book moves elegantly from its dark beginnings to a transcendent thankfulness. With healing lyricism, she writes: And I imagine the white sheets as heron wings./And the whirring machines are white eggs./And the worried voices are sunlight on water.

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