Red Trousseau

Red Trousseau is the latest work from one of America’s greatest modern poets. The Los Angeles Times wrote that Carol Muske has discovered a way to work magic within the boundaries of technical achievement … Her contemplation of experience is personal yet moves further, into the spiritual and philosophical; then it be longs not only to the poet but to all of us.

The poems in Red Trousseau use Los Angeles as a symbol for the seduction of appearances; reality crosses from the Wallace Stevens notion of the sun in "Red Trousseau," “hovering in its guise of impatient tribunal,” to the sun in "Unsent letter.” in which a director reshoots a tarnished sunset so that "the scene, infinite, rebegins” In Muskes poems primary colors dominate, most notably red—the red of Salem burnings, the self-immolation of a political dissident in Prague, and Eros it self, moving like a red shadow over the body of love Stylistically brilliant and emotionally resonant, the poems in Red Trousseau display the work of a master poet at the peak of her craft.

"With Red Trousseau, Carol Muske achieves the insight, emotional accuracy, and terrifying sureness of moral discernment she has always sought. She surveys human relations with an acid clairvoyance through which the reckless currents of personal and cultural history course, ripping away all but the essential tones of the human conversation with its humanity: terror, sometimes courage, excessive need, and the stubborn twin habits of hope and representation. This is urgent and beautifully confident work.’—Jorie Graham

Red TrousseauI
To the Muse, New Year's Eve, 1990
Stage & Screen, 1989
Field Trip
In-Flight Flick
Theories of Education
Frog Pond
Little L.A. Villanelle

II
Red Trousseau
Alchemy, She Said
My Sister Not Painting, 1990
Kenya
Insomnia
Lucifer
Prague: Two Journals
M. Butterfly
Character

III
Unsent Letter
Unsent Letter 2
Unsent Letter 3 (Retro Vivo)
Unsent Letter 4: Last Take
Barra de Navidad: Envoi

About the Author

Carol Muske is the author of five collections of poetry and two novels, Dear Digby and Saving St. Germ. She is the recipient of numerous awards for her poetry, including Guggenheim, NEA, and Ingram-Merrill fellowships. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and daughter.