{"product_id":"open-shutters-isbn-9780375710148","title":"Open Shutters","description":"Mary Jo Salter’s sparkling new collection,\u003cb\u003e Open Shutters\u003c\/b\u003e, leads us into a world where things are often not what they seem. In the first poem, “Trompe l’Oeil,” the shadow-casting shutters on Genoese houses are made of paint only, an “open lie.” And yet “Who needs to be correct \/ more often than once a day? \/ Who needs real shadow more than play?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eOpen Shutters\u003c\/b\u003e also calls to mind the lens of a camera—in the villanelle “School Pictures” or in the stirring sequence “In the Guesthouse,” which, inspired by photographs of a family across three generations, offers at once a social history of America and a love story.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDarkness and light interact throughout the book—in poems about September 11; about a dog named Shadow; about a blind centenarian who still pretends to read the paper; about a woman shaken by the death of her therapist. A section of light verse highlights the wit and grace that have long distinguished Salter’s most serious work.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFittingly, the volume fools the eye once more by closing with “An Open Book,” in which a Muslim family praying at a funeral seek consolation in the pages formed by their upturned palms.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOpen Shutters \u003c\/b\u003eis the achievement of a remarkable poet, whose concerns and stylistic range continue to grow, encompassing ever larger themes, becoming ever more open.\u003cb\u003eOpen Shutters\u003c\/b\u003e (2003)\u003cbr\u003e“[Salter] . . . challenges us with the discovery that something lucid, forthright, and fantastically undisheveled might also be sublime.”\u003cbr\u003e–Stephen Metcalf, \u003ci\u003eNew York Times Book Review\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e“Salter . . . performs with deep pleasure and arresting artistry the paired arts of avid observation and the transformation of hectic experience into crystalline images, golden threads of narrative, and startling extrapolations . . Salter’s moves are so precise and gravity-defying, so astonishingly eloquent, the exhilarated reader feels as though she’s watching a gymnast perform intricate, risky, and unpredictable sequences, nailing each one perfectly.\u003cbr\u003e–Donna Seaman, \u003ci\u003eBooklist\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e“A mature poet at the top of her form. . . Delightful.”\u003cbr\u003e–Rochelle Ratner, \u003ci\u003eLibrary Journal\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eA Kiss in Space\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e(1999)\u003cbr\u003e“The book of poetry I loved best this year was\u003cb\u003e A Kiss in Space\u003c\/b\u003e, full of moving adventurous work.”\u003cbr\u003e–Les Murray, \u003ci\u003eTimes Literary Supplement\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\"These are poems of breathtaking elegance: in formal control, in intellectual subtlety, in learning lightly displayed.\"\u003cbr\u003e–Carolyn Kizer \u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003eSunday Skaters (\u003c\/b\u003e1994)\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e“A beautiful book, a major phase in the career of an important poet . . . In these poems a quality of close but apparently effortless observation is backed up by a strong and deep moral sense.”\u003cbr\u003e–Henry Taylor\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eUnfinished Painting\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e(1989)\u003cbr\u003e “Mary Jo Salter’s work embodies the marriage of superb craftsmanship to the tragic sense of reality, which is the formula of true poetry.”\u003cbr\u003e–Joseph Brodsky \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eHenry Purcell in Japan\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e(1985)\u003cbr\u003e “A poetry full of alertness, tact, credible feeling, and an unforced gaiety of form . . . For all her modesty of tone, she has a range of awareness and response, which, in a time when much poetry has shrunk to the merely personal, is refreshingly large.”\u003cbr\u003e–Richard WilburMary Jo Salter was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and grew up in Detroit and Baltimore. She was educated at Harvard and Cambridge Universities and worked as a staff editor at\u003ci\u003e The Atlantic Monthly\u003c\/i\u003e and as poetry editor of \u003ci\u003eThe New Republic\u003c\/i\u003e. A vice president of the Poetry Society of America, she is also a coeditor of \u003cb\u003eThe Norton Anthology of Poetry\u003c\/b\u003e. In addition to her five poetry collections, she is the author of a children’s book,\u003cb\u003e The Moon Comes Home\u003c\/b\u003e. She is Emily Dickinson Senior Lecturer at Mount Holyoke College and lives with her family in Amherst, Massachusetts.\u003cb\u003eTROMPE-L’OEIL\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAll over Genoa\u003cbr\u003eyou see them: windows with open shutters.\u003cbr\u003eThen the illusion shatters.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut that’s not true.  You knew\u003cbr\u003ethe shutters were merely painted on.\u003cbr\u003eYou knew it time and again.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe claim of the painted shutter\u003cbr\u003ethat it ever shuts the eye\u003cbr\u003eof the window is an open lie.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYou find its shadow-latches strike\u003cbr\u003ethe wall at a single angle,\u003cbr\u003elike the stuck hands of a clock. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWho needs to be correct\u003cbr\u003emore often than twice a day?\u003cbr\u003eWho needs real shadow more than play?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eInside the house, an endless\u003cbr\u003esupply of clothes to wash.\u003cbr\u003eOn an outer wall it’s fresh\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003epaint hung out to dry–\u003cbr\u003eshirttails flapping on a frieze\u003cbr\u003eunruffled by any breeze,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003elike the words pinned to this line.\u003cbr\u003eAnd the foreign word is a lie:\u003cbr\u003ethat second “l” in “l’oeil”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ewhich only looks like an “l,” and is silent.","brand":"Knopf","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46301127573733,"sku":"NP9780375710148","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780375710148.jpg?v=1767734229","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/open-shutters-isbn-9780375710148","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}