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Loading... Ossuaries (edition 2010)by Dionne Brand
Work InformationOssuaries by Dionne Brand
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Dionne Brand's hypnotic, urgent long poem - her first book of poetry in four years, is about the bones of fading cultures and ideas, about the living museums of spectacle where these bones are found. At the centre of Ossuaries is the narrative of Yasmine, a woman living an underground life, fleeing from past actions and regrets, in a perpetual state of movement. This is a work of deep engagement, sensuality, and ultimate craft from an essential observer of our time and one of the most accomplished poets writing today. No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)811Literature English (North America) American poetryLC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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this genealogy she's made by hand, this good silk lace,
Engels plaited to Bird, Claudia Jones edgestitched
to Monk, Rosa Luxemburg braids Coltrane
as far as she's concerned these names reshaped time
itself though time seems somehow set itself,
in time
in so few rooms that Yasmine herself is caught
and trapped in its coarse drenched net,
a blue crab angling and articulating
sideways, these names would help
here, but
such, such did not create the world or fix time
in that bulbous concentration,
of what matters,
what appears
Yasmine knows in her hardest heart,
that truth is worked and organized by some,
and she's on the wrong side always
This is a poem that warrants rereading and rereading, and I'm sure I shall return to it often. ( )