No Way Out but Through

by Lynne Sharon Schwartz

Overview

“One marvels at the force of seeing in Schwartz’s No Way Out But Through and cannot help but feel a particular gratitude for her abundant humor. Go all in with these poems; you'll reap unknown rewards. She possesses a quick-witted imagination that sanctifies memories and makes room for the wondrous nature of our cosmopolitan lights.”
—Major Jackson

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780822964599
Publisher:	University of Pittsburgh Press
Publication date:	02/14/2017
Series:	Pitt Poetry Series
Edition description:	1
Pages:	88
Product dimensions:	4.90(w) x 7.40(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Lynne Sharon Schwartz is the author of two previous poetry collections: See You in the Dark, and In Solitary. Her twenty-three books include the novels Disturbances in the Field, Leaving Brooklyn, a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award, and Rough Strife, a finalist for the National Book Award. She has also published non-fiction, short stories, a memoir, essays, and translations. Schwartz is the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts (in fiction and translation), and the New York State Foundation for the Arts. She has taught widely in the United States and abroad, and currently teaches at the Bennington College Writing Seminars and the Columbia University School of the Arts.

Table of Contents

1

Veronica Lake 5

Collecting Myself 6

The Ladders 7

Nocturnal Repertory 8

Forgetting 10

First Loves 11

Hard and Soft 14

What the Poets Never Write about Love 15

The German Class 16

Namesake 17

A Dress Laments 18

A Bad Rap 20

The Two Supers 21

Renee Returned 22

Trans 24

Stitching Skin 25

2

For Beverly

Reduced 29

No Way Out but Through 30

Dayyenu 31

Till You Walk in Her Shoes 32

Mist 33

On Horseback 34

Things I Wish I'd Asked My Big Sister 36

3

Cordelia 41

Words 42

Advice to Modern Spies 43

Infinity Everywhere 44

Young Blood 45

Enlightenment? 47

Pope Says Internet Is Gift from God 48

Error 49

Something Is Wrong 50

Hourglass 52

Thesaurus 53

True, Pleasant, and Necessary 54

Hearing Chamber Music 55

We Pre-Boomers 57

4

Losing Touch 61

The Coat 62

Taking Out the Garbage 63

Yiddish 64

The Grandfather 65

Cookies Foretell a Refreshing Change 66

Miss Darlene's Dancing School 67

Surprise 69

Pretty Maids All in a Row 70

The Doctor and His Dog 71

How the Mighty Have Fallen 72

Professor Donato 73

Leaving 74

So They Are Not Alone 75

Notes 77

Acknowledgments 79

Editorial Reviews

"A poet of poise and power. No Way Out but Through, Schwartz's third collection of poems, showcases some of this writer's many strengths. She's a stubborn anti-sentimentalist who can write wrenching elegies. She's an archivist of memories, a celebrant for the forgotten or nearly forgotten, who also writes eloquently of the undertow of oblivion. She's an anthologist of anxiety dreams. Irritated by Cordelia and partial to the Fisherman's Wife, she's a contrarian reader. At all times, Schwartz's poetic voice is piercingly honest. Her tough-minded intelligence leaves plenty of room for questions and regrets."
—LA Review of Books


“One marvels at the force of seeing in Schwartz’s No Way Out But Through and cannot help but feel a particular gratitude for her abundant humor. Go all in with these poems; you'll reap unknown rewards. She possesses a quick-witted imagination that sanctifies memories and makes room for the wondrous nature of our cosmopolitan lights.”
—Major Jackson


“Can mournfulness be wry? Can irony be heartfelt? Yes, when the writer is as insightful as Lynne Sharon Schwartz, her voice urgent with life even as she speaks about death. From Veronica Lake to her old boyfriends to lost family members, a whole peopled world is created for us here, at the intersection of memory and dream.”
—Linda Pastan


“From dreams uncannily composed of real life oddities to sharply etched memories of a New York consumed by change and stark encounters of family deaths and portraits of enduring presences—Lynne Sharon Schwartz has given us a collection of lithe poems empowered by fierce attention, honesty, and ruefulness.  These poems have the immediacy and poignance of the best photographs, clear, haunting, trustworthy.  A book to read—and then keep near to return to again.”
—Patricia Hampl

From the Publisher