Separate Vision: Isolation in Contemporary Women's Poetry

Literature & Fiction

Pope, Deborah

Poetry

Louisiana State Univ Pr

The poems in Fanatic Heart, Deborah Pope's remarkably accomplished first collection of verse, are distinguished by their sensuous language, assured voice, and surpassing intelligence. "These are poems with a definite edge to them," notes the poet Betty Adcock. Memory and identity, family and place, lives that encompass both "the wingsweep of joy" and "the fierce hug of grief" - these are Pope's concerns. Hers are poems of pain and loss, but they are also, and more tellingly, poems of wonder, of love and passion in their various guises, of the ambiguity in every human relation - an ambiguity skillfully evoked in "Signs": In these woods we have chosen / with scarcely more knowing / than we chose each other, / prospects will always promise / more than they come to. / The solidity of this house is surface, / the permanence of anything is myth. / We take our visions edged, / at home in a light that curves. / Still, as the gypsies say, / good road.The poems are set in a carefully articulated natural world, whose sensual beauty Pope captures in such lines as these from "Peaches": They will be all over the ground, / gold-dusted, giving softly / under the balls of our feet, / size of apricots, no good for eating, / but the smell will be / delicious.Deborah Pope's poems give voice to a life deeply felt and fully realized, whose very personal visions yield universal claims. At the heart of this poetry's fanaticism is the search for the ground of intimacy and the configurations of identity. It is a measure of Pope's skill that each recognition seems powerfully right, not sought but given.

Fanatic Heart: Poems

The poems in Fanatic Heart, Deboarah Pope’s remarkably accomplished first collection of verse, are distinguished by their sensuous language, assured voice, and surpassing intelligence. “These are poems with a definite edge to them,” notes the poet Betty Adcock. Memory and identity, family and place, lives that encompass both “the wingsweep of joy” and “the fierce hug of grief”―these are Pope’s concerns. Hers are poems of pain and loss, but they are also, and more tellingly, poems of wonder, of love and passion in their various guises, of the ambiguity in every human relation―an ambiguity skillfully evoked in “Signs”:
In these woods we have chosen with scarcely more knowing than we chose each other, prospects will always promise more than they come to. The solidity of this house is surface, the permanence of anything is myth. We take our visions edged, at home in a light that curves. Still, as they gypsies say, good road.
The poems are set in a carefully articulated natural world, those sensual beauty Pope captures in such lines as these from “Peaches”:
They will be all over the ground, gold-dusted, giving softly under the balls of our feet, size of apricots, no good for eating, but the smell will be delicious.
Deborah Pope’s poems give voice to a life deeply felt and fully realized, whose very personal yield universal claims. At the heart of this poetry’s fanaticism is the search for the ground of intimacy and the configurations of identity. It is a measure of Pope’s skill that each recognition seems powerfully right, not sought but given.

LSU Press

Sensuous, longing, grieving by turns, the poems of Mortal World are love poems in the widest and yet most intimate sense. They do not hold the world at a distance; rather, they taste, see, touch, and savor the things of the world, human connections chief among these. These are poems about beginnings and endings, written from the emotional center of experience. In their evocative, widening arc of emotion they trace a path from passionate awakening to ambiguous estrangement to the complicated griefs that wait at the heart of even the deepest love. Still, they finally reach toward reconciliation, toward a reclaiming of the "province of joy."

Mortal World: Poems

As in her first collection, the widely praised Fanatic Heart, Deborah Pope in this new collection continues a journey through a world of deep and fierce attachments. With impressive range, Pope writes of intimate moments with lover and children, of her strong attachment to the natural environment, to meditations on the human face of political upheaval. Sensuous, longing, grieving by turns, the poems of Mortal World are love poems in the widest and yet most intimate sense. They do not hold the world at a distance; rather, they taste, see, touch, and savor the things of the world, human connections chief among these.
These are poems about beginnings and endings, written from the emotional center of experience. In their evocative, widening arc of emotion they trace a path from passionate awakening to ambiguous estrangement to the complicated griefs that can wait at the heart of even the deepest love. Still, they finally reach toward reconciliation, toward a reclaiming of the “province of joy.”
 Deborah Pope’s first book, as many critics noted, announced a poet of great promise. That promise is more than realized in the wise and beautiful poems of Mortal World.

Mortal World: Poems (Louise Lindsey Merrick Natural)

Falling Out of the Sky: Poems

While the poems of Deborah Pope's latest collection, Falling Out of the Sky, are rooted in the here and now -- the place where tables are set, children play, and empty cans collect -- they are also suffused with a spirit of transfiguration and the miraculous. They map an earthy, palpable, yet oddly luminous landscape that embraces our most intimate relationships with lovers, relatives, and the body itself. Ranging over this terrain that is at once familiar and fearsome, Pope engages difficult questions and complex emotions, hard truths and fierce connections.Pope employs plain yet sensuous language, lyrical intensity, and startling images to deal with both the familiar ("Age. How to think of it.") and the extraordinary ("An angel has begun to speak to me"). There is the anger of children, the clutch of illness, the rawness of love and grief alike, the strangeness of revelation. At times they literally wrestle with angels.In this mature, powerful collection, Pope boldly reveals her own grief, fears, and regrets as well as the grace, mercy, and love she shows and is shown. Falling Out of the Sky beautifully communicates the profound and enigmatic relationship between love and desire, hate and betrayal, despair and hope.

While the poems of Deborah Pope’s latest collection are rooted in the here and now―the place where tables are set, children play, and empty cans collect―they are also suffused with a spirit of transfiguration and the miraculous. They map an earthy, palpable, yet oddly luminous landscape that embraces our most intimate relationships with lovers, with relatives, and with the body itself. Ranging over this terrain that is at once familiar and fearsome, Pope engages difficult questions and complex emotions, hard truths and fierce connections.
Pope employs plain yet sensuous language, lyrical intensity, and startling images to deal with both the commonplace (“Age. How to think of it.”) and the extraordinary (“An angel has begun to speak to me”). These poems are not passive in their perceptions or their passions. There is the anger of children, the clutch of illness, the rawness of love and grief alike, the strangeness of revelation. At times they literally wrestle with angels. 
In this mature, powerful collection, Pope boldly reveals her own grief, fears, and regrets as well as the grace, mercy, and love she shows and is shown. Falling Out of the Sky beautifully communicates the profound and enigmatic relationship between love and desire, hate and betrayal, despair and hope.

The emergence of large numbers of women writers expressing a deliberately female consciousness has marked one of the significant directions of literature in this century. A central idea embraced by these writers has been the particular isolation, or marginality, flet by women.In A Separate Vision Deborah Pope focuses on four representative poets – Louise Bogan, Maxine Kumin, Denise Levertov, and Adrienne Rich – to explore the ways in which women writers’ treatment of isolation extends our perception of women’s experience and our understanding of the alienated human sensibility. In the work of these poets, Pope identifies four distinct phases of isolation, split-self, and validation. These phases represent a progression from negation to affirmation, from a sense of powerlessness and severe restriction to one of literal and psychological freedom. She shows how the dynamics of this progression have operated in each poet’s development, with each starting from the negative stance of victimization and moving, in varying degrees, toward validation.But Pope also finds that in each woman’s work one phase of isolation is predominant. She sees the tension and confessionalism in the poetry of Bogan, the earliest of the four, as most representative of victimization. Kumin’s poems on her alienation from familial and social experiences exemplify personalization. The split-self is manifested most clearly in Levertov, whose work shows a woman torn between her social female self and her inner artistic self. Rich, the most committed feminist of this group, si also the strongest exemplar of validation. Her recent poems are charged with personality and power, and the isolation in her writing is the isolation of those in the forefront of exploration and change. This progress toward a positive sense of women’s isolation is a significant movement in contemporary poetry. With what Pope describes as their “vigorous revisioning of our patterns of human experience,” women poets are today showing us new ways of understanding and realizing human dignity and worth.

A Separate Vision: Isolation in Contemporary Women's Poetry

History & Criticism

Poems that give voice to a life deeply felt and fully realized.&nbsp; Deborah Pope's poems give voice to a life deeply felt and fully realized, whose very personal visions yield universal claims. At the heart of this poetry's fanaticism is the search for the ground of intimacy and the configurations of identity. It is a measure of Pope's skill that each recognition seems powerfully right, not sought but given. &nbsp;

Fanatic Heart (Carnegie Mellon Classic Contemporary Fiction)

Carnegie-Mellon University Press

A sharp and poignant poetic exploration of memory, aging, and the relationships that define our lives. &nbsp; The poems of Wild Liar emerge from a fundamental engagement with the nature of memory--its shifting constructions and needs, its equilibriums and disquiets. Refracted through language rich with Deborah Pope's distinctive lyricism and acute eye for detail, the poems plumb the experience of the passing of parents, the departure of children, the weathers of a long marriage, and an acknowledgment of mortality. Whether writing with sly humor or emotional directness, her voice compels attention--it is clear-eyed and assessing, poignant and wise. &nbsp;

Wild Liar (Carnegie Mellon University Press Poetry Series)

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

Books by Pope, Deborah

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

Separate Vision: Isolation in Contemporary Women's Poetry

Fanatic Heart: Poems

Fanatic Heart: Poems

Mortal World: Poems

Mortal World: Poems (Louise Lindsey Merrick Natural)

Falling Out of the Sky: Poems

Falling Out of the Sky: Poems

A Separate Vision: Isolation in Contemporary Women's Poetry

Fanatic Heart (Carnegie Mellon Classic Contemporary Fiction)

Wild Liar (Carnegie Mellon University Press Poetry Series)