{"product_id":"blue-rose-isbn-9780143131250","title":"Blue Rose","description":"\u003cb\u003eA new collection of emotionally rich, issue-oriented poems from an award-winning poet whose work “has long been essential reading” (Jorie Graham)\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003eCarol Muske-Dukes has won acclaim for poetry that marries sophisticated intelligence, emotional resonance, and lyrical intensity.  The poems in her new collection, \u003ci\u003eBlue Rose\u003c\/i\u003e, navigate around the idea of the unattainable – the elusive nature of poetry, of knowledge, of the fact that we know so little of the lives of others, of the world in which we live.  Some poems respond to matters of women, birth, and the struggle for reproductive rights, or to issues like gun control and climate change, while others draw inspiration from the lives of women who persisted outside of convention, in poetry, art, science:  the painter Paula Modersohn-Becker, the scientist and X-ray crystallographer Rosalind Franklin, and the Californian poet and writer Ina Coolbrith, the first poet laureate ever appointed in America.  “Muske-Dukes writes with piercing clarity about both current events and personal struggles . . .the intensity of these poems – which seek to know more about the lives of others and our world – is difficult to forget.”\u003cb\u003e – \u003ci\u003eThe\u003c\/i\u003e \u003ci\u003eWashington Post\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “This book is the culmination of a lifetime of poetry writing and acquired wisdom.  The poetry is at the highest level but it’s also about daily life:  poetry as life story . . . the overriding theme is learning to be who you are in a world of massive possibility.”\u003cb\u003e – Michael Silverblatt, “Bookworm”\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"In this collection . . . [women] are rare and mysterious, afflicted and abused, generous and generative, soaring above circumstance. Although this book tells many stories, it belongs to the histories and tumultuous hours of women whose lives we might not even notice otherwise . . . These poems offer us pictures of unsung choices that shape women’s lives.\" \u003cb\u003e– \u003ci\u003eThe Rumpus\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Muske-Dukes’s skill in these poems is her ability to ground her public and private concerns so firmly in compelling images, graceful allusion and lyrical cadence . . . her poems are an active resistance to erasure; they elevate, explore and elegize the experience of women who have already been erased by circumstance, society, and history.” \u003cb\u003e– Lorna Knowles Blake, \u003ci\u003eThe Hudson Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A kaleidoscopic work, both politically charged and personal.  Family events, feminist celebrations and activist struggles have a transcendental element.”\u003cb\u003e – Carol Rumens, \u003ci\u003eThe Guardian\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Poems of keen attunement . . . Muske-Dukes wields a finely calibrated matter-of-factness shot through with frissons of wonder as she reports on the shifting elements of dark and light in everyday moments, and tracks the physics of feeling – attraction and repulsion, chaos and sudden, rare, fleeting clarity.” \u003cb\u003e--Donna Seaman, \u003ci\u003eALA Booklist\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A beautiful book . . . with its theme of life’s fierce tenacity . . . Because of a keen intelligence, [Muske-Dukes’s] portrayals are neither sentimental nor occasions for protest.  Instead they are colorful, accurate, and strikingly alive.” \u003cb\u003e–Grace Schulman, \u003ci\u003eNew York Journal of Books\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Scathing intelligence and an open heart: the most difficult combination in the world, and bountifully manifest on every page. In the birth room, at the death bed, beneath the falling ash of a California wildfire, before the whole, hurt spectacle of an imperiled and beloved world, these poems remind us what it’s truly like to see and feel. And oh, the achieved musicianship: every image and abutment, every syllable and turn of diction earns its place in the cadence of the whole. These poems arrive like a life line.”  \u003cb\u003e--Linda Gregerson\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e“Much of Muske-Dukes’s verse kneads at the hardships of womanhood . . . nearly every poem heaves with grief or torment or even, at times, profound love.”\u003cb\u003e –Caitlin Youngquist, \u003ci\u003eThe Paris Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003eCarol Muske-Dukes\u003c\/b\u003e is the author of eight books of poems, including \u003ci\u003eSparrow\u003c\/i\u003e, which was a finalist for the National Book Award; four novels; two collections of essays; and \u003ci\u003eCrossing State\u003c\/i\u003e \u003ci\u003eLines:  An American Renga\u003c\/i\u003e, co-edited with Bob Holman.  She is Professor of English and Creative Writing at the University of Southern California, and was California Poet Laureate from 2008 to 2011.\u003ci\u003eRequiem for a Requiem\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e                    — Paula Modersohn-Becker, 1876-1907\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Shaking shame from her brush, she presses\u003cbr\u003e it to canvas. Before her, women could not\u003cbr\u003e paint women naked. Before her, women\u003cbr\u003e could not gaze into the mirror of their flesh.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Still lines erasing taboo: spite-green goblet,\u003cbr\u003e halved fruit. The women staring, bare. Or\u003cbr\u003e nursing unclothed, eyes on the artist’s eyes.\u003cbr\u003e                                               Without shame: a style.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e She haunts her friend, Rilke, from beyond\u003cbr\u003e the grave she predicted for herself, days past\u003cbr\u003e giving birth. For years: refused that death\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e warrant. Near the art colony, she reinvents\u003cbr\u003e her solitude. Glass held up to query an angle,\u003cbr\u003e bootlegged light in a doorway. Bootlegged:\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e a daughter’s open eyes. Clichés of haunt: Paris\u003cbr\u003e ateliers, Cézanne’s oranges, fractured Picasso\u003cbr\u003e nudes. Knowing what they knew. Saw how\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e style derives from itself: how a body idealized\u003cbr\u003e by desire floats in trees, vanishes in clouds.\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eNever to laugh, pick up a kid, bleed.\u003c\/i\u003e She picks\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e up a kid, bleeds. Leaving Rilke’s portrait un-\u003cbr\u003e done. Drifting now into his “Requiem,”\u003cbr\u003e writ for her: “friend,” this shadow body. He\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e beckons now into candlelight. She listens\u003cbr\u003e to her own breath, dying. So like each\u003cbr\u003e gasp at the start. Says: \u003ci\u003eDid you know Death\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003echeers at each conception?\u003c\/i\u003e as Love looks to her\u003cbr\u003e in the mirror: sweet murder. Chance-\u003cbr\u003e implacable is the enthroned soul, but she rises on\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e each brushstroke. Deathless, her way\u003cbr\u003e to unveil a woman’s body. But “Schande!” she cries,\u003cbr\u003e her dying word, holding her newborn daughter to her\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e breast. Shame! \u003ci\u003eSoul, come claim the body.\u003c\/i\u003e","brand":"Penguin Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46305236254949,"sku":"NP9780143131250","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780143131250.jpg?v=1767722849","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/blue-rose-isbn-9780143131250","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}