Distributed for Eastern Washington University Press
Lip
In this stunning fourth collection, Kathy Fagan expands her ongoing engagement of voice and persona across the borders of both traditional and experimental poetic lines. A book of monologues, portraits, and arias, Lip directs our attention to the sometimes literal ropes and pulleys of the human stage, those operating just out of sight and earshot: the understructure and the undervoice. Fagan’s speakers—historical, anonymous, and often subversively female—hold forth, hold back, enfold and unleash in forms as multiply textured as their experience. Always, hovering at the mouth of the vessel, in the margin of speech, is lip: anatomical and botanical, sexual and slang, servile and insolent.
Table of Contents
Commedia per Musica "No cakes for us . . ." • "And I took the little book . . ." • Finger Painting • "God helps those . . ." • Postmodern Penelope at Her Loom Pantoum • "What she could do . . ." • Lament • Now You See It • Bad Patch • Butter • Three, Becoming Spring • Pontoon Pantoum #505 • Diadem • Design for the Costume of a Minor Divinity • "There’s just one little thing . . ." • Constant Craving • Never Mind Pliny, • Progressive Lenses • ’69 • Saloon Pantoum • SPAM • Lunacy • Womb to Tomb Pantoum • "How long, O Lord, how long?" • "Note. This Angel, who is now become a Devil . . ." • The Exhibit • My Pleistocene • Ontology and the Platypus • Leap of Faith • Got to Your Room, Pantoum • "I should not say, of Taglioni . . ." • Darling, • Lullaby for a Familiar • Nostophobia • Road Memorial Acknowledgments • About the Author