Imaginary Vessels

by Paisley Rekdal, Andrea Modica (Photographer)

Overview

"Compelling, appealing, cinematic . . . Rekdal refreshes the meaning and the image of being displaced in this world." —The Boston Globe

"Rekdal's work deeply satisfies, for it witnesses and wonders over the necessary struggles of human awareness and being." —Rain Taxi

"In acknowledging the disappointing facts of our existence and singing her way into its amazement, she has created poetry that lives alongside the misery we sometimes witness—and sometimes cause." —Slate

Paisley Rekdal questions how identity and being inhabit metaphorical and personified "vessels," from blown glass and soap bubbles to skulls unearthed at the Colorado State Mental Institution. Whether writing short lyrics or a sonnet sequence celebrating Mae West, Rekdal's intellectually inquisitive and carefully researched poems delight in sound, meter, and head-on engagement. Illustrated with twelve Andrea Modica photographs.

From "You're":

Vague as fog and turnip—hipped, a creel of eels
that slithers in stains. Dirty slate, you're
Diamond Lil. She's you, you say. You're her. She's I. O
Mae, fifth grade, we dressed in feathers and our mothers' slit
pink slips, dipped into your schema and your accent,
aspiring (like you) to be able to order coffee and have it
sound like filth . . .

Paisley Rekdal is the author of four books of poetry, a book of personal essays, and a mixed media book of photography, poetry, fiction and non-fiction. She lives in Salt Lake City and teaches at the University of Utah.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781556594977
Publisher:	Copper Canyon Press
Publication date:	11/08/2016
Pages:	110
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.40(d)

About the Author

Paisley Rekdal: Paisley Rekdal is the author of four books of poetry, a book of personal essays, and a mixed media book of photography, poetry, fiction and non-fiction. She lives in Salt Lake City and teaches at the University of Utah.

Table of Contents

I

Murano 5

Bubbles 7

Vessels 11

A Peacock in a Cage 14

At the Fishhouses 16

When it is Over, it Will Be Over 18

Letter From the Pribilofs 21

II Go West

You're 27

Mae West: Advice 28

Marriage 29

Censored 30

Freedom 32

Go West 33

The New Woman 34

Mae West: On Aging 35

"Celebrity" Striptease at Southern X-Posure 36

Confessional 37

Self-Portrait as Mae West One - Liner 38

Never 39

Prayer 40

Envoi 41

III

W.C. Fields Takes a Walk 45

Philip Larkin's Koan 47

Once 48

Saturdays at Reynolds Work Release 50

Olive Oatman in Texas 53

Assemblage of Ruined Plane Parts, Vietnam Military Museum, Hanoi 58

IV Shooting the Skulls: A Wartime Devotional

Portrait of F19: Male, 42 Years Old 63

Portrait of D6: Male, 38 Years Old/B17: Male, 38 Years Old 65

F21: Male, 37 Years Old 67

Devotional 68

Devotional 69

Portrait of F11: Female, 39 Years Old 71

F20: Male, 29 Years Old 73

Portrait of D19: Male, 41 Years Old 75

Portrait of D17: Female, 37 Years Old 77

C18: Male, 36 Years Old 79

Devotional 80

Devotional 81

Portrait of E4: Male, 34 Years Old 83

Devotional 84

Devotional 85

C2: Male, 42 Years Old 87

Portrait of E20: Female, 32 Years Old 89

C11 : Female, 54 Years Old 91

Portrait of B4: Female, 34 Years Old 93

Portrait of C8: Male, 32 Years Old 95

V

Baucis and Philemon 99

Rhetoric 102

Irises 104

Monticello Vase 106

Birthday Poem 109

Mortal Love 111

The History of Paisley 114

Notes 117

About the Author 119

Editorial Reviews

09/19/2016
In her subtle and multifaceted fifth collection, Rekdal (Animal Eye) turns various receptacles into representations of transience, sustenance, and drive. As the poet mulls motherhood as an imperfect substitute for immortality, a child mourns a burst soap bubble: “They don’t last!” The oyster, meanwhile, contains the pearl within its “labial meats” and the “heart rustles/ in its manila folder.” Rekdal’s lyrical symbols connect through the ages: “a car inhales the gas/ containing bones of dissolved dinosaurs/ and the cheese breeds mold to heal the cut that holds/ the hurt cradled inside the body.” A series of poems in homage to performer and wit Mae West are as delightfully subversive as their subject. In the alliterative voice of West, Rekdal advises, “Be belle and ball, too, a deb Coco-labeled;/ be ocelot, be lancet, be candle and cabled.” In another series, inspired by Andrea Modica’s photographs of skulls unearthed from the Colorado Mental Health Institute, Rekdal views the skulls as haunted former residencies of their owners’ shattered psyches. “What dreams remain encased inside this freckled/ gourd, this ostrich egg cradled on cardboard,” she writes. One particular skull resembles the desiccated remains of an armadillo’s shell—abandoned and obsolete. Rekdal’s address of the fundamental fragility at the center of existence possesses a vigor that inspires rereading. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

09/15/2016
In her latest volume, Rekdal, a Guggenheim Fellow and finalist for the 2013 Kingsley Tufts Prize for her collection Animal Eye, proposes that identity can be discerned by the vessel, the container in which the entity is held, whether it be a glass bead, a bubble, or a broken skull. In poems that are sometimes narrative and often lyrical, Rekdal's vessels run the gamut from cages to zippered skirts to pearls and serve to hone readers' perception of beauty, of necessity. "The mussel// become what no one/ wants to:/ vessel, caisson, wounded// into making us/ the thing we want/ to call beautiful." The centerpiece of this volume is the series of "devotionals," meditations on Andrea Modica's portraits of skulls discovered at the Colorado Mental Health Institute, bones so old they hold no identity other than gender and age. Rekdal contains these poems as sonnets, reimagining these lost souls as human, as viable. "What dreams, inside this chamber, remain encased?" she muses. Throughout, Rekdal writes mostly in persona, and her characters leap and sing with imagination and music. Mae West, for instance, is recognizable from her humor and sass: "I'm no model lady, you know. A model's just an imitation of the real thing." VERDICT A necessary read for those who appreciate imagery and fine language.—Karla Huston, Appleton, WI

Library Journal