Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • 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
Vespers

Vespers

Lewty, Jane

Paperback

Series: Kuhl House Poets

General Poetry

Publisher Price: $22.00

PREORDER - Expected ship date November 10, 2026

ISBN10: 1685971016
ISBN13: 9781685971014
Publisher: University of Iowa Press
Published: Nov 10 2026
Pages: 144
Weight: 1.00
Language: English

Often called evening prayer, vespers is held around sunset. Its purpose: to give thanks for the day and offer a sacrifice of praise to God. In Jane Lewty's Vespers, she superimposes the tropes of the Christian ritual onto a very different type of sacrifice--that of making art.

Through nightly devotion, the speaker of these poems maps ritual until it degrades: the speaker as an obedient robot, a scribe-concubine, a centaur wearing skates, a poet seeking virtuosity and dexterity. Vespers asks: What if writing prompts are a bad idea? What if one could become addicted to the incremental process? Is it possible to walk away from an addiction without suffering and trauma?

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