School Figures - University of Pittsburgh Press

School Figures

An intensely lyrical, elegantly modulated collection. . . . Song's careful, painterly eye makes her the mistress of small moments of perception that, strung together, expand into a larger frequently numinous understanding.

Women's Review of Books

In choosing Cathy Song’s first book for the Yale Series of Younger Poets, Richard Hugo said that her poems are “bouquets to those moments in life that seemed minor but in retrospect count the most.”

In this, Song’s third book, the poems are like the school figures an ice skater etches onto the ice – the pen moving silently and deliberately across a white expanse of paper and experience, bringing maximum pressure to bear upon the blade of language to unlock “the invisible fire beneath the ice.”

More Praise

In her third book, the marvelously named Song explores that endlessly complex terrain, the family, with delicate exactitude. . . .This is a busy, full book, what with its uncles and grandpas and gossipping aunts. Neither woundedly angry nor at nor sentimentally accepting of ehr family and its heritage, Song explores the nuances of intimacy with admirable clarity and passion.

Pat Monaghan

Whether describing everyday errands or probing the depths of emotion, the poems in Song's third collection are at once vivid and fluid, short-lined rhythms, lend themselves to an understated assurance, allowing the poet to startle—even to shock.

Virginia Quarterly Review

Table of Contents

Sample

128 Pages, 6 x 9 in.

November, 1994

isbn : 9780822955177

Series

Pitt Poetry Series

Subjects

about the author

Cathy Song is the author of four previous books of poetry: Picture Bride, winner of the Yale Younger Poets prize; Frameless Windows, Squares of Light; School Figures; and The Land of Bliss.

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