Passages: Poems

Literature & Fiction

Brosman, Catharine Savage

Poetry

Louisiana State Univ Pr

In Passages, Catharine Savage Brosman presents journeys between the world and spirit, journeys that share an axis of yearning for a realm as pure as desire. Brosman refracts through metrical virtuosity, historical imagination, and a vision like cleansing light a world alive with coruscating color and sensual textures.
Each line is subtle, quiet, yet breathtaking in its precision, and the spare eloquence of Brosman’s perfectly executed gestures invests with stunning pathos poems such as “Wind”―which reflects a woman abandoned by husband, children, and faith itself―and “Carnival,” in which a lonely aging woman at Mardi Gras muses.
Whether rendering a speaker’s spiritual communion with Mozart, the febrile longings of a woman caught in adultery in French Algeria, or a love letter by Madame d’Epinay (deftly couched in the metrics and tropes of eighteenth-century France), Brosman moves effortlessly from the broodingly intimate perspectives of other eyes, other souls, to the most abstract of aesthetic meditations.
These are poems of wit and passion, poems that beg to be read and reread, and this remarkable collection reminds us again and again of the passages that open into the lives of our imagination.

LSU Press

On this familiar planet all is strange, writes Catherine Savage Brosman, and so begins an eye and mind-opening journey. Brosman's poems take the reader from a veranda at the Columns hotel on New Orleans' St. Charles Avenue to such varied sites as the rainy banks of the Thames, a greengrocer's winter produce bin, an Abbey on the Norman plain, and a seat under tropical palm trees.

Places in Mind: Poems

Always spirited and elegant, by turns witty and meditative, Catharine Savage Brosman's Under the Pergola contemplates Louisiana, past and present, before traveling a broader path that crosses Colorado landscapes and the island of Sicily.In her eighth collection of poems, Brosman evokes the Pelican State's trees, birds, rivers, swamps, bayous, New Orleans scenes, historic houses, and colorful characters. She also recounts, in free verse, formal verse, and one prose poem, the "misdeeds of Katrina" as she and others experienced them.Other poems range widely, from reflections on writers Samuel Johnson, Paul Claudel, André Malraux, and James Dickey to quiet meditations on the American West, Odysseus, fruits and vegetables, and the recent "light years" of the poet's life -- which she characterizes as "silken... slipping smoothly off" like a gown.

Under the Pergola: Poems

Watering

University of Georgia Press

Place is not only a metaphor for the self; it can be the self objectified, including the self of years ago. So writes Catharine Savage Brosman, who explores the places of her own life in Finding Higher Ground. The tour, for the reader, is one of delight and wonder. Brosman's places range from the West Texas desert of her girlhood to a chilly flat in the north of England; from the flooded streets of New Orleans to the sublimities of the Colorado Rocky Mountains. Even as her meditations reflect on her connections to these places and the ways they have shaped her life, they also examine the broader connections between individual and community, culture and society, experience and memory. Her voice is unique - combining a poet's sensitivity to nuances of setting and behavior with salty good sense, passionate engagement in the world of letters, sly wit, and a rugged independence of character inherited from generations of her Western ancestors. Whether sipping wine in a Parisian cafe, partying with the jet set in Aspen, or contemplating the arid desert West that she loves so deeply, Brosman inhabits these settings, and many others, with a sense of adventure and discovery. To read these

Finding Higher Ground: A Life Of Travels (Environmental Arts and Humanities)

University of Nevada Press

Breakwater

Collects poems that reflect on how life can reach a fine, beautiful, and intelligent point.

Mercer University Press

Collects poems that reflect on how life can reach a fine, beautiful, and intelligent point.

On the North Slope, Catharine Savage Brosman's ninth collection of poetry, displays once more the impressive range of her artistry and her powerful poetic vision. Divided into four parts, the volume includes free verse, blank verse, and rhymed quatrains. Taken together, the poems impart the very feeling of consciousness and illuminate both its potentialities and its burdens as it relates to the world. After the introductory poem, the first part, A Commonwealth of Place, features the winds, snow, light, and sunset of a Colorado winter. Following poems combine elements of personal and historical experience with mountain and desert scenes, which illustrate the subtle bonds between such experiences and their natural and cultural settings. Order Under the Sun comprises eighteen lyrics, mostly rhymed, dealing with flowers, birds, trees, and one of Brosman's specialties foodstuffs, including carrots, honey, and garlic. The tone of these lyrics, which focus on the human meaning of such natural objects, ranges from humorous to grave. The Scripted Fate brings together narrative and lyric poems treating the poet s girlhood, in addition to such topics as failure and unhappiness, dying, and friendship and love, ending with an affirmation of married happiness. The final part, Themes for the Muses, features creative artists Rodin, Donizetti, Liszt, and Yeats, among others and performers. The poems emphasize creative work but even more the often dramatic dimensions of artists lives and the implications of artistic vision. Readers of Brosman's new collection will find a generous spectrum of responses to experience, both light and dark, in poems of great verbal and visual appeal.

On the North Slope

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Brosman, Catharine Savage. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Brosman, Catharine Savage

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Brosman, Catharine Savage. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Passages: Poems

Passages: Poems

Places in Mind: Poems

Places in Mind: Poems

Under the Pergola: Poems

Watering

Finding Higher Ground: A Life Of Travels (Environmental Arts and Humanities)

Breakwater

Breakwater

On the North Slope