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In Sandra Alcosser's collection, A Fish to Feed All Hunger, nature follows the inevitable, and yet somehow beautiful, course towards rot and decay. These poems are peopled with souls who either embrace the beauty and mystery of this life cycle or vainly struggle against it. But always, life's decay takes on the colorful images of rust, lichen, brilliant fungi, peacock moths, and faded photographs. As she observes in her poem "He Didn't Speak," nature's colors don't fade with the passing of time as one might expect: "Images grown more brilliant each year/ as lichen do when they eat stone, dissolving/ the color within, breaking it to pieces." ... Read more

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Except by Nature is the winner of the 1998 James Laughlin Award of The Academy of American Poets. Amazon.com Review
Sandra Alcosser's third book of poetry, a National PoetrySeries winner selected by Eamon Grennan,rewards you with a walk through nature's mysteries and beauty--and themaze of human nature. Like nature, the climate of the poems is notalways comfortable, but the language is exquisite and clear.

One of Alcosser's frequent themes is the cost of courage. In"Card Game Blind River," the speaker braves alligator garand other swamp denizens to make camp. But when rattlesnakes awaken inthe cabin's attic, she must steel herself so that her companions won't"hear the high 'e' of my mind." In the prose poem "AWarrior's Tale," Rachel, who is at a party, suffers throughlistening to the story of a young woman's rape and survival, all thewhile recalling her own assault. She breaks down, but only "inanother room so that the men could not see her."

Spirituality waits in abundance in the natural world. The poem"The Anatomy of Air" explains, "when the world is toosharp / I walk toward the canyon" where "wind slicks backthe needles" and sadness dissipates, "duffled, / by thepalpitating air." In "Flame," a husband leaves his wifefor a winter, after cutting and cording "the most resonant pinesof our life" to keep her warm and to keep him on her mind. In hisabsence, "they would be / his bolt of news unfurling, my faceflushed red / and red again by the hot inquiring tongues."Except by Nature invites you to return to its poems again andagain. --Susan Swartwout ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

An astonishing book of nature and eros, psyche and shadow.
The new book by Sandra Alcosser "Except by Nature arrived last week and I have been reading and rereading it ever since, turning it over in my hands, carrying it with me.How aesthetically lovely the book itself is, the paper ivory and thick.I love the dimensions of the book, how each poem has plenty of white space surrounding it.Prose pieces introduce the three sections of poems.Thus the book begins: "Dream and fester.The potential for evil and irrational growth.So the tropics with their perfume and juice threatened to consume...."And so we enter an erotic, strange, quivering world.My favorite poems just now are "Worms," "What Makes the Grizzlies Dance," "By the Nape,""Woodpecker," "Zulu Time," and "Greenhand.""Burying the Carnival" leaves me shaking on each rereading.Here are a few lines from "In the Jittering World":In a world jittering with possibility, / how did I come to this sour basement / in a Southern city to grade rhetoric, / water dripping all day down drainpipes, / and at night for recreation, / to nurse a lizard?I love his sticky toe pads, / the way he rests / between death and life, leaf-veined, reflective. / Carefully he picks across the blue carpet, as if / it were a globe laid flat."This is an astonishing book--of nature and eros, psyche and shadow, well titled from the last line of "Skiing by Moonlight": "Except by nature--as a woman, I will be ungovernable." ... Read more

Product Description
This digital document, covering the life and work of Sandra (B.) Alcosser, is an entry from Contemporary Authors, a reference volume published by Thompson Gale. The length of the entry is 992 words. The page length listed above is based on a typical 300-word page. Although the exact content of each entry from this volume can vary, typical entries include the following information:

• Place and date of birth and death (if deceased)
• Family members
• Education
• Professional associations and honors
• Employment
• Writings, including books and periodicals
• A description of the author's work
• References to further readings about the author

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Anthology of prose and poetry by San Diego Writers, Ink, a nonprofit literary organzation, edited by Sandra Alcosser and Arthur Salm. ... Read more

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This digital document is an article from The Antioch Review, published by Antioch Review, Inc. on January 1, 2004. The length of the article is 2988 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Avant-gardist in the forest.(Essays)(Lorine Niedecker)(Critical Essay)
Author: Sandra Alcosser
Publication: The Antioch Review (Refereed)
Date: January 1, 2004
Publisher: Antioch Review, Inc.
Volume: 62Issue: 1Page: 28(10)

Article Type: Critical Essay

Distributed by Thomson Gale ... Read more

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Author's 1st book/poetry collection. ... Read more

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PARABOLA: The Search for MeaningVOLUME 31 NUMBER 2 SUMMER 2006ABSENCE AND LONGING A BLINDING PROXIMITY Patrick LaudeDivine presence and human absence AND WHERE HE COMES FROMAND WHERE HE GOES Bernard of ClairvauxSelf observation and counsel from a twelfth century saint ENTERING THE ORDINARY Hilary HartLessons in simplicity and love THE BUDDHA CALLING THE BUDDHA Rev. Kinrel Bassis learning to listen THE PATH OF YEARNING Rabbi Marc Gafni From separation to unionGLYPHS Sandra Alcosser Reading the landscape with Lewis and Clark THE PAIN OF DIVINE LOVE Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee The sanctity of sorrow IN TIME Eduardo Galeano Translated by Mark Fried The voyage between two ftutteringsTHE FORMLESS HUNCH Peter Brook A way of working AS FAR AS LONGING CAN REACH Peter and Maria Kingsley The energy of wanting TO PERFECT ONESELF IN THE SENSE OF BEINGAn conversation with Margaret FlinschATTENTION OF THE HEART Abba Dorotheus ALL THAT IS BETWEEN THEM Omid SafiThe journey from there to here LONLINESS AND PRESENCE Thomas BerryFinding our place in the great community of beingWHAT DOES RABBI STEINSALTZ SAY? EDUCATING DESIRE Adin SteinsaltzHOLY EARTH Being in Nature THE APPLE AND THE GARDEN Peter Lamborn WilsonTANGENTS Arts in Review UNDER THE SURFACE OF THINGS Vat ThorpeThe Architecture of Santiago CatatravaPOETRYPRO VIOENCE A. R. Ammons VILLA ON ZHONGNAN MOUNTAIN Wang Wei WHERE IS THE ANGEL? Denise Levertov THE MEADOWLARK, THE MOTHER Sandra AlcosserEPICYCLES Stories and Commentary THE PARABLE OF THE MAGIC PALACEJewish Yitzhak Buxbaum THE SEVEN RAVENS German Suzan Donleavy-JohnstonPlus 7 FILM and REVIEWS ... Read more