Little Stranger

by Lisa Olstein

Overview

Lisa Olstein's third collection reverberates with twinned realities: wonder and terror, beauty and difficulty, celebration and lament. Through encounters with science, war, art, animals, and motherhood, Little Stranger explores the exigencies of close attention, the tenuousness of attachment, and the ever more rapidly shifting nature of knowledge. Intimate lyrics, elegies, and narratives speak in voices familiar yet strange.

Lisa Olstein's debut collection of poetry, Radio Crackling, Radio Gone (Copper Canyon Press, 2006), won the Hayden Carruth Award, and her second volume, Lost Alphabet (Copper Canyon Press, 2009), was named a "Best Poetry Book of the Year" by Library Journal. She lives in Amherst, Massachusetts.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781556594328
Publisher:	Copper Canyon Press
Publication date:	05/14/2013
Series:	Lannan Literary Selections
Pages:	96
Product dimensions:	5.80(w) x 8.80(h) x 0.30(d)

About the Author

Lisa Olstein’s debut collection of poetry Radio Crackling, Radio Gone (Copper Canyon, 2006) won the Hayden Carruth Award, and her second volume, Lost Alphabet (Copper Canyon, 2009), was named a “Best Poetry Book of the Year” by Library Journal. After receiving her BA from Barnard College, Olstein lived in Greece and studied at Harvard Divinity School before deciding to pursue an MFA at University of Massachusetts Amherst. She currently serves as Associate Director of MFA program for Poets and Writers at University of Massachusetts Amherst, where she cofounded the Juniper Initiative for Literary Arts & Action and is a contributing editor at jubilat. She lives in Amherst, Massachusetts.

Table of Contents

Themselves Performing Small Brave Acts 3

Spirit Level 4

This Is a Test of the Internal Emergency Broadcast System 5

Teaching Farm 6

Blood, Bread, Spoons 7

Control Group 8

Deserter's Information Center 10

Furniture Music 11

To Where 12

The Brain Is an Operations Center 13

Necessary Monsters 14

A Tiger's Roar Is Friend 17

Different Animals 18

Ibex Have Evolved for Life at the Top 19

Barasingha Find Safety in Numbers 20

Notes from the Wilderness 21

You Can Tell a Tiger by Its Stripes 22

Heavy Hunters Rely on Stealth 23

When You're a Top Predator You Have to Survive 24

Sambar Lead Private Lives 25

Leopards Are Flexible Cats 26

I'm Writing You a Telegraph and the Pony and the Pony Express Man Are Waiting by the Door 29

Cold Satellite 30

Marooned 31

The Flow of Alien Deer 32

Exile the Dragon-Tailed and the Rabbit-Eared among You 33

Dear Sir 34

Was to Have Been Called Whip-Poor-Will 45

A Mr. and Mrs. Rajik Once Existed and Lived Happily in Kalisz 46

Helpmeet, Handmaiden 47

Every Boy, Every Blood 48

My Eyes Were Harbors 49

Rabbits with Wise Eyes 50

The Famed Clipper Ship Is in Flames 51

To Them Belong the Beds in Which We Sleep 52

Diorama 53

Aubade 57

Elegy 59

Elegy 61

Elegy 62

Elegy 63

Elegy 65

Vespers 67

This Waking Life 71

Different Habitats Make for Good Neighbors 72

I Saw a Brand-New Look 73

Blast Harmonics 75

The Queen Is Dead. Long Live the Queen 76

This Season It's All about 3D 77

Brainstorm 78

Silver Whips of Trees 79

When I Wake Too Soon 80

Smaller Devices 81

Theory of Correspondences 82

Space Junk 83

About the Author 85