once upon a twin: poems
When Raymond Luczak was growing up deaf in a hearing Catholic family of nine children, his mother shared conflicting stories about having had a miscarriage after—or possibly around—the time he was conceived. As an elegy to his lost twin, this book asks: If he had a twin, just how different would his life have been? 
1137844493
once upon a twin: poems
When Raymond Luczak was growing up deaf in a hearing Catholic family of nine children, his mother shared conflicting stories about having had a miscarriage after—or possibly around—the time he was conceived. As an elegy to his lost twin, this book asks: If he had a twin, just how different would his life have been? 
15.95 In Stock
once upon a twin: poems

once upon a twin: poems

by Raymond Luczak
once upon a twin: poems

once upon a twin: poems

by Raymond Luczak

Paperback(1)

$15.95 
  • SHIP THIS ITEM
    In stock. Ships in 6-10 days.
  • PICK UP IN STORE

    Your local store may have stock of this item.

Related collections and offers


Overview

When Raymond Luczak was growing up deaf in a hearing Catholic family of nine children, his mother shared conflicting stories about having had a miscarriage after—or possibly around—the time he was conceived. As an elegy to his lost twin, this book asks: If he had a twin, just how different would his life have been? 

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781944838768
Publisher: Gallaudet University Press
Publication date: 02/10/2021
Edition description: 1
Pages: 96
Product dimensions: 5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Raymond Luczak is the author and editor of more than twenty books, including Flannelwood: A Novel, QDA: A Queer Disability Anthology, and Compassion, Michigan: The Ironwood Stories. An inaugural Zoeglossia Fellow and an eleven-time Pushcart Prize nominee, he lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
 

Table of Contents

9 months 1

Ironwood (1976-1981)

My corpse self 7

First prayer 9

Battle preparations 10

The easiest words to lipread in a schoolyard 12

Gods copper 13

Deaf rich boy 79 14

The tiniest snakes 16

The mighty thurible 19

Atonement 22

Heretics 23

The new baltimore catechism for the deaf 24

The other night when i died 25

Twinhood

If you were my twin 29

Braided veins 31

Fraternal identical 34

If my twin were a she 35

The other miscarriage 37

How to name your (dead) twin 39

Dream family language 41

My other (deaf) twin 42

Fists 45

$$$$$ 46

London dreaming 47

Holy communion 51

Houghton (1974-1976)

Todd w carlborn 59

Charles e klingbeil 61

My first phone call 64

That 1 jet hockey game 67

Raymond a krumm 69

Mere boys 71

Kyrie

Double helix kyrie 75

*

The conflation of memory: an afterword 81

*

Acknowledgments 84

About the author 85

What People are Saying About This

author of Where I Stand John Lee Clark

“Hauntingly beautiful. Raymond Luczak has always been a poet of longing, but with once upon a twin he has outdone himself. Reaching back as far as his time in his mother’s womb, communing with the ghosts that he would grapple with for the rest of his life, he gives us another angle on the Deaf experience. We have much to be grateful for in this epic of story and song.”

Connie Voisine

“The woods are dark, deep, and quite real in Raymond Luczak’s once upon a twin. Here, in this dream of a book, the speaker’s twin is not miscarried but conjured to comfort the isolated child he was. Through poems describing the speaker’s bullying at school and alienation at home where ASL was not a part of family life, the beloved twin becomes a figure for the unnamed, the overlooked, the person who must be restored through love and attention. once upon a twin is a fantastic and necessary book.”

Ellen McGrath Smith

once upon a twin is revisionist personal mythmaking at its most vulnerable and most insistent. The truth is delivered through Luczak’s thoroughgoing exploration of a classic symbol reinvented through the lens of Deaf and gay identity.”

Stephen Kuusisto

“Raymond Luczak’s once upon a twin brings forward the mystery of life both in its physicality and its spindrift ardor for what might have been or still could be. These poems are lyrical, tough, tender, and utterly original.”

John Lee Clark

“Hauntingly beautiful. Raymond Luczak has always been a poet of longing, but with once upon a twin he has outdone himself. Reaching back as far as his time in his mother’s womb, communing with the ghosts that he would grapple with for the rest of his life, he gives us another angle on the Deaf experience. We have much to be grateful for in this epic of story and song.”

author of The Bower Connie Voisine

“The woods are dark, deep, and quite real in Raymond Luczak’s once upon a twin. Here, in this dream of a book, the speaker’s twin is not miscarried but conjured to comfort the isolated child he was. Through poems describing the speaker’s bullying at school and alienation at home where ASL was not a part of family life, the beloved twin becomes a figure for the unnamed, the overlooked, the person who must be restored through love and attention. once upon a twin is a fantastic and necessary book.”

author of "The Bower" Connie Voisine

“The woods are dark, deep, and quite real in Raymond Luczak’s once upon a twin. Here, in this dream of a book, the speaker’s twin is not miscarried but conjured to comfort the isolated child he was. Through poems describing the speaker’s bullying at school and alienation at home where ASL was not a part of family life, the beloved twin becomes a figure for the unnamed, the overlooked, the person who must be restored through love and attention. once upon a twin is a fantastic and necessary book.”

author of "Nobody’s Jacknife" Ellen McGrath Smith

once upon a twin is revisionist personal mythmaking at its most vulnerable and most insistent. The truth is delivered through Luczak’s thoroughgoing exploration of a classic symbol reinvented through the lens of Deaf and gay identity.”

author of "Nobody’s Jacknife" Ellen McGrath Smith

once upon a twin is revisionist personal mythmaking at its most vulnerable and most insistent. The truth is delivered through Luczak’s thoroughgoing exploration of a classic symbol reinvented through the lens of Deaf and gay identity.”

author of Nobody’s Jacknife Ellen McGrath Smith

once upon a twin is revisionist personal mythmaking at its most vulnerable and most insistent. The truth is delivered through Luczak’s thoroughgoing exploration of a classic symbol reinvented through the lens of Deaf and gay identity.”

author of "Where I Stand" John Lee Clark

“Hauntingly beautiful. Raymond Luczak has always been a poet of longing, but with once upon a twin he has outdone himself. Reaching back as far as his time in his mother’s womb, communing with the ghosts that he would grapple with for the rest of his life, he gives us another angle on the Deaf experience. We have much to be grateful for in this epic of story and song.”

From the B&N Reads Blog

Customer Reviews