The Goldilocks Zone

by Kate Gale

Overview

"Welcome to Kate Gale's world. There are glass houses, a glass orchestra, sex on the roof. . . . Kate Gale knows her Bible and plays whatever music she wants on that musical instrument—but her música is always fresh, and it achieves wisdom."—Ilya Kaminsky, author of Dancing in Odessa

"The clipped jumpy rhythm of these poems with their sudden bursts of syntax prove repeatedly that Kate Gale possesses a poetic tone and pace all her own. She is also refreshingly out of step with today's poetry of self-absorption, for she is fascinated less by her ego than by the strange variety of the world around us."—Billy Collins, former U.S. Poet Laureate

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780826354327
Publisher:	University of New Mexico Press
Publication date:	02/15/2014
Series:	Mary Burritt Christiansen Poetry Series
Pages:	96
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.70(h) x 0.30(d)

About the Author

Kate Gale is the managing editor and a member of the board of directors for Red Hen Press. She teaches in the low-residency MFA program at the University of Nebraska. Kate is author and editor of several books, including Mating Season and Fishers of Men, and her work has been published in a variety of literary journals.

Table of Contents

Part I Glass House

Scapa Flow 3

The House That Jack Built 4

Land of Milk and Honey 5

Goldilocks Zone 6

London Bridge 8

Outside the Walled City 9

Bridges Unnecessary 10

The Last of Blue 11

Mother in the Window 12

Snake's Eyes 14

Random Parenting 15

Sleeping Late 16

Half-Written Note 17

Windowpane 18

Glass Houses 19

Jelly and Darkness 20

The Brothel Keeper's Mask 21

Oresund Bridge 22

Drawing Room, Powder Blue 23

The Glassmaker's Wife 24

Glass Lunatic 25

Part II Her Teeth Show

Comstockery 29

The Night of Fireworks 31

Undoing 33

Lou Andreas Salome 34

You Won't Be Lonely 35

Where She Got the Knife 36

Covered Bridge 38

Condoms in Philadelphia 41

Glass Eye 43

Frogs' Legs 45

The Second Death 46

Leaping Like Antelopes 47

Getting Laid 49

Four Great Discoveries 50

The Glass Orchestra Plays for Immortality 51

Fireworks Cooking Just Like Cornbread 52

What Kept Us Going 54

Christian Hookers 55

Before Golf, Glass 56

Armadillo 57

Life Outside the Glass 58

Part III Bridges and Fireworks

Vegas to Skywalk 61

Bridges to Islands 63

Drunk on a Trampoline 64

The Dead Child 66

Sex on the Rooftop 67

Dual Pleasure 68

Broken Eggshells 69

Fields 70

After You Married John Wayne 71

The Book of Life 72

The Lip of the Body 73

Winter Death 74

Gung Pow 76

Gender Differences According to the Bible 78

Alchemy and Eternal Life 79

Casanova and the Aphrodite of the Modern World 80

Acknowledgments 83

Editorial Reviews

"Implied or overtly stated, this collection of poems delineates the journey to happiness; it is a journey of internal and incessant movement. Refining, compressing, and expanding one's writing while in ceaseless movement is almost unimaginable. Ms. Gale deftly succeeds."—Concho River Review

From the Publisher