Dementia, My Darling
As with Constantine's previous titles, Dementia, My Darling can be enjoyed at random or in order. However, when taken in sequence, the poems construct a thesis on life as we remember it from moment to moment. What is your first memory of love? How soon will you forget answering that question?
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Dementia, My Darling
As with Constantine's previous titles, Dementia, My Darling can be enjoyed at random or in order. However, when taken in sequence, the poems construct a thesis on life as we remember it from moment to moment. What is your first memory of love? How soon will you forget answering that question?
11.95 In Stock
Dementia, My Darling

Dementia, My Darling

by Brendan Constantine
Dementia, My Darling

Dementia, My Darling

by Brendan Constantine

Overview

As with Constantine's previous titles, Dementia, My Darling can be enjoyed at random or in order. However, when taken in sequence, the poems construct a thesis on life as we remember it from moment to moment. What is your first memory of love? How soon will you forget answering that question?

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781597097185
Publisher: Red Hen Press
Publication date: 04/06/2016
Edition description: 1
Pages: 104
Product dimensions: 5.90(w) x 8.80(h) x 0.40(d)

About the Author

Brendan Constantine is the author of the poetry collections Calamity Joe (Red Hen Press, 2012), Birthday Girl with Possum (Write Bloody Publishing, 2011), and Letters To Guns (Red Hen Press, 2009), which is now taught extensively in schools across the nation. His work has inspired artists in a variety of other mediums, from the canvas to the concert hall, and he has received grants and commissions from the Getty Museum, James Irvine Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts. A popular performer, he has presented his work to audiences throughout the U.S. and Europe, also appearing on NPR’s “All Things Considered” and KPFK’s “Inspiration House.” In 2014 he headlined at the Dodge Poetry Festival with many of the nation’s most celebrated authors. He currently teaches poetry at the Windward School in Los Angeles, California, and regularly conducts workshops for hospitals, foster homes, and with the Alzheimer’s Poetry Project.

Table of Contents

Rule 13

Phase I Blurb

Ghost Madrigal 17

The last thing I want to do is hurt you 18

Poem Made from Letters Written by FranceEye (1922-2009) 20

Dementia, My Darling 21

Fugue State 23

"You Went Down to the River" 24

Latitude 42 25

Hearth Rob 26

Pest in Blur 27

Exam 29

The Man in the Next Bed 30

Rime 32

No One Spoke 34

The Main Event 35

Another Natural Cause 36

The Guest Speaker 37

In the Ear of Our Lord 38

The War on Drugs 39

Phase II Book of the Moth

Uncorrected Proof 43

Foreword 44

Acknowledgments 45

EXTRACT 46

Inconsolation 47

The Class Room 48

PHOTOTAXIS 49

Disclaimer 50

A Foundry Gone 51

Ten Alternatives to Diagnosis 52

Over Here, This One 53

EXTRACT 54

Somniloquy 55

So They Keep Still 56

PHOTOTAXIS 57

The Ultra Sound 58

Mum 59

EXTRACT 61

The Book of the Moth Club 62

Cinch 63

They Left Their Dog and a Record Playing 64

EXTRACT 66

Cellar Door 67

PHOTOTAXIS 68

Glossary 71

Index of Titles and First Lines 72

Phase III: Best Cellar

The Long While 77

The Needs of the Many 78

Stonehenge at Twilight 80

The Bear Chapter 82

Because You Watched The Space Children 83

Smiling Back 84

The Winds Now 85

The Dreams of Trains 86

Fell Swoop 87

All Fathers Eve 88

En Route 89

Departing Gates 91

Night Stand 92

The Last Superstition 93

The Man Who Did the Honors 94

A Point of Losing 95

Is Anyone Reading to You 97

Still Life on Mars 99

Notes 100

Afterword 102

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“

“Brendan Constantine’s Dementia, My Darling is a mediation on memory. Poems address the difficulty of the death of memory and how does a survivor deal with recollections of a father’s lie, a collective lie about snow, school desk carvings, sleep talking, moths, and hospital ceilings. This collection examines consciousness, connotations, and relationships. Constantine is a master poet illuminating the ordinary and extraordinary with his distinct voice holding humor and heart equally.”

—Steven Reigns, author of Inheritance

“Dementia, My Darling is a suite of acute, beautiful poems about coming apart, slippage, love, emptying out, transformation, and carrying on. Every absurdly human moment in them is handled with smarts and just the right mix of inventiveness and delicacy. Each poem leaves its mark on the reader. Tender and humane and unsparing, the poems never surrender to despair. They all have a kind of brightness. Constantine renders the creeping surrealism of dementia from many angles, with the awe that is its due. Gaps, anagrams, collage and montage are employed to convey the myriad ways we fragment, multiply, dissolve. A fly is described as ‘an ink blot with wings / a blood spot / that sings a thin hymn.’ (!!) This book is a lyrical wrestling match with mortality.”

—Amy Gerstler, author of Dearest Creature

“I love this collection. I’m dazzled by its spectacular acts of imagination, the places it invents, the ways it invents of describing those places. Its most wondrous feat, though, is the heart it allows to beat behinds its intelligence, the person that peers from its intricate, sharp, brilliant latticework: so much structure, so much sharpness, and that softness, too. Bravo.”

—Mandy Kahn, author Math, Heaven, Time

"Brendan Constantine’s enormous talent and style are instantly recognisable in his latest poetry collection. His ability to play with words and ideas are, to me, unrivalled and his work is right at the top of my list of living poets."

—Chrissie Morris Brady

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