Captivated by the simultaneously routine and disruptive nature of violence and desire, Nowhere Was a Lake marks a luminous debut from poet Margaret Draft. "What do you do when a horse dies? / You hollow out the land, // you try to make enough space, / and when you think you have enough, // keep digging." In these poems, our own tenderness endangers us, and yet -- when faced with the enormity of our hunger, an appetite that proclaims both the bounty of nourishment and our capacity for loss -- Draft keeps digging. "He said ...
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Captivated by the simultaneously routine and disruptive nature of violence and desire, Nowhere Was a Lake marks a luminous debut from poet Margaret Draft. "What do you do when a horse dies? / You hollow out the land, // you try to make enough space, / and when you think you have enough, // keep digging." In these poems, our own tenderness endangers us, and yet -- when faced with the enormity of our hunger, an appetite that proclaims both the bounty of nourishment and our capacity for loss -- Draft keeps digging. "He said this because // he himself had to enter the hole / with the horse and shovel, // shift the legs, reposition the head." The speaker here has an unflinching pragmatism, a characteristic that paradoxically makes her emotions all the more tangible. This is how you prospect a grave, she seems to say, but you'll be in it, too. You with your body among the other bodies. Draft rejects simple binaries, insisting that oblivion can be a place, that fidelity and betrayal can coexist in our most intimate relationships, that to live as a human animal means embodying both hunter and prey. Deft in its exploration of female sexuality, the emotional complexity of polyamory, and the distinction between freedom and abandonment, Nowhere Was a Lake mesmerizes with its erotic pastorals and frank prose poems. "Edge" interrogates "the dialectic of trust" structuring romantic relationships and negotiated through sexual physics: "It is not a question of whether you will / harm me, but whether you will / stick around long enough / to hold me when I am harmed." The risk and reward of such exploration is uncertainty: anything could happen, but anything could happen. "In no place, going someplace, I know. / There are so few things I can say I know definitively. // But this must be the definition of plenty. / The sun slowly setting over the valley." And, yes, love may wend through the field as we thresh it. And, yes, we are in the light as it goes down.
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Add this copy of Nowhere Was a Lake to cart. $12.31, good condition, Sold by Housing Works Online Bookstore rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from New York, NY, UNITED STATES, published 2024 by Four Way Books.
Add this copy of Nowhere Was a Lake to cart. $19.22, new condition, Sold by GreatBookPrices rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Columbia, MD, UNITED STATES, published 2024 by Four Way Books.
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New. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 90 p. In Stock. 100% Money Back Guarantee. Brand New, Perfect Condition, allow 4-14 business days for standard shipping. To Alaska, Hawaii, U.S. protectorate, P.O. box, and APO/FPO addresses allow 4-28 business days for Standard shipping. No expedited shipping. All orders placed with expedited shipping will be cancelled. Over 3, 000, 000 happy customers.
Add this copy of Nowhere Was a Lake to cart. $36.17, like new condition, Sold by GreatBookPrices rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Columbia, MD, UNITED STATES, published 2024 by Four Way Books.
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Seller's Description:
Fine. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 90 p. In Stock. 100% Money Back Guarantee. Brand New, Perfect Condition, allow 4-14 business days for standard shipping. To Alaska, Hawaii, U.S. protectorate, P.O. box, and APO/FPO addresses allow 4-28 business days for Standard shipping. No expedited shipping. All orders placed with expedited shipping will be cancelled. Over 3, 000, 000 happy customers.
