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A Wreath of Down and Drops of Blood: Poems
Raised on a family farm in the Pacific Northwest, Allen Braden has deep connections to rural life. Even at its most lyrical, his language evokes the local dialect of the West, his West. These poems, balancing elegy and affirmation, measure human and animal relationships with “brute geometry” in order to calculate the damage we require of ourselves.

Returning to variations of a sonnet titled “Taboo against the Word Beauty,” Braden relentlessly pursues the possibility of naming the beautiful without ignoring what has so often and so widely been destroyed by human hands.

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A Wreath of Down and Drops of Blood: Poems
Raised on a family farm in the Pacific Northwest, Allen Braden has deep connections to rural life. Even at its most lyrical, his language evokes the local dialect of the West, his West. These poems, balancing elegy and affirmation, measure human and animal relationships with “brute geometry” in order to calculate the damage we require of ourselves.

Returning to variations of a sonnet titled “Taboo against the Word Beauty,” Braden relentlessly pursues the possibility of naming the beautiful without ignoring what has so often and so widely been destroyed by human hands.

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A Wreath of Down and Drops of Blood: Poems

A Wreath of Down and Drops of Blood: Poems

by Allen Braden
A Wreath of Down and Drops of Blood: Poems

A Wreath of Down and Drops of Blood: Poems

by Allen Braden

Overview

Raised on a family farm in the Pacific Northwest, Allen Braden has deep connections to rural life. Even at its most lyrical, his language evokes the local dialect of the West, his West. These poems, balancing elegy and affirmation, measure human and animal relationships with “brute geometry” in order to calculate the damage we require of ourselves.

Returning to variations of a sonnet titled “Taboo against the Word Beauty,” Braden relentlessly pursues the possibility of naming the beautiful without ignoring what has so often and so widely been destroyed by human hands.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780820334745
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
Publication date: 03/15/2010
Series: The VQR Poetry Series
Pages: 80
Product dimensions: 5.40(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.20(d)

About the Author

ALLEN BRADEN is the recipient of a creative writing fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and a residency from the Poetry Center and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. His poems have appeared in such publications as the Georgia Review,Prairie Schooner, Shenandoah, Virginia Quarterly Review, and Witness.

ALLEN BRADEN is the recipient of a creative writing fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and a residency from the Poetry Center and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. His poems have appeared in such publications as the Georgia Review,Prairie Schooner, Shenandoah, Virginia Quarterly Review, and Witness.

Table of Contents


Acknowledgments xi
Taboo against the Word Beauty, Invocation 1
Smudge Pots 2
Taboo against the Word Beauty, Epistolary Version Riding the Chicago Loop 3
Flight Theory 4
Taboo against the Word Beauty, Plagiarized Version for My Ex 8
Remembering Precious Landscape, but with an Elegy in Mind 9
Taboo against the Word Beauty, Troubadourian Version 10
Crew Cut 11
Hubbard’s Falcon 12
Taboo against the Word Beauty, Elegiac Version 14
Reversal 15
The Venison Book
1. Dressing 16
2. Deconstructing 18
Taboo against the Word Beauty, Version with a Flintlock Rifle Triggered Repeatedly 20
First Elk, 1939 21
Taboo against the Word Beauty, Premonition 22
Detail of the Four Chambers to the Horse’s Heart 23
Pomegranate 27
Taboo against the Word Beauty, Pastoral Version 28
Elegy in the Passive Voice 29
Refinishing 30
Taboo against the Word Beauty, Answer Key 31
Taboo against the Word Beauty, Ars Poetica 32
The Hemlock Tree 33
Taboo against the Word Beauty 34
Your Life As Found in a Toolbox 35
Grinding Grain 36
Taboo against the Word Beauty, Postmodern Postmortem 37
Almanac Magic 38
Taboo against the Word Beauty, Circular Version 39
Taboo against the Word Beauty, Brief Version Full of Grace 40
Litany Ending with a Taste of Nectar 41
Taboo against the Word Beauty, Version Planted in Sorrow’s Orchard 42
Elegiac
I. Hawthorn (Cupiditatis) 43
II. Bird’s-eye Maple (Acer saccharum) 46
III. Catalpa (Catalpa speciosa) 47
IV. Willow (Salix babylonica) 49
V. Tree of Heaven (Ailanthus altissima) 51
VI. Ash (Fraxinus) 55
VII. Cottonwood (Populus deltoides) 57
VIII. Sandalwood (Santalum album) 59
Taboo against the Word Beauty, Ornithological Version on Aesthetic Theory 60
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Related Subjects

Poetry
American Poetry
Other American Poetry
Poetry
American Poetry
Other American Poetry

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