Description:
As technology and consumerism inch to the forefront of society, I Was Bonnie and Clyde illuminates small collisions between life and death.
In Kasischke's newest collection, every moment contains an infinity: the mundane in the monumental, and the monumental in the mundane. I Was Bonnie and Clyde illuminates small collisions between life and death, from "that last suitcase circling / its last loop / for all of eternity" to "the mole / hauled out of the ground / by the dog / to die in the sun." Ghosts haunt and heighten these poems as they draw upon the independent weariness of women throughout history: Bonnie Parker, Lady Godiva, Amy Winehouse, a handbook's unnamed perfect hostess. Lovingly self-effacing, Kasischke evokes vulnerability, disbelief, and tragedy with a quiet, conversational reverence. With wordplay and exclamation, lament and ironic humor, these poems invite as they reflect, reaching out to a forbidding world.
Review Quotes:
Praise for I Was Bonnie and Clyde
"Kasischke, a prizewinning poet and fiction writer, considers women's lives in her new collection, musing on the predicaments of Bonnie Parker, Lady Godiva, Marilyn Monroe, and Amy Winehouse. . . . Her lyrics are spare, edgy, and powerful. . . . Kasischke considers time, earth, nature, language, violence, memory, and eternity. She elaborates on passionate sunny days, storms, night skies, faith, being lost, ballerinas, falling out of the sky, and other mysterious experiences. . . . Terse, precise, and provocative, Kasischke's poems resonate."--Paige Bentley-Flannery, Booklist
"The poems in I Was Bonnie & Clyde often feel drenched in memory. . . . It feels like a bit of wisdom about how we evaluate our personal histories and what engages our self-reflection, the lore we are forced to drag along with us throughout our lives. Stuff we've been told. Stuff we probably invent."--Charles Rammelkamp, The Lake
Praise for Laura Kasischke
"Kasischke deposits us here at the foot of a perpetuity, making an eternity of the smallest scale (nail biting)."--Chiara Bercu, ZYZZYVA
"Maybe it doesn't take a visionary to merge a funeral with Deep Purple, or to combine realism with myth, but this poet is deeply smart in a way that isn't often articulated in the world and her fusions and images can add up to revelation."--Gale Renee Walden, Brooklyn Rail
"This is a collection of masterful poems that are honest about the experience of being a person while posing urgent philosophical questions and answering them through the act of art that chimes and throws sparks."--Jennifer Michael Hecht, American Poets
"Kasischke's latest collection, tight with her distinguishing concision and strong lyricism, continues to invent and explore new terrains."--Ellen Duffer, Ploughshares
"For Kasischke and for Glück both, poetry is a kind of revenge on the existential limits that it describes."--Stephanie Burt, Los Angeles Review of Books
"Kasischke astonishes with her lyricism and metaphorical power."--Publishers Weekly
"The future will not--should not--see us by one poet alone. But if there is any justice in that future, Kasischke is one of the poets it will choose."--Stephanie Burt, Boston Review
"Kasischke's poems are powered by a skillful use of imagery and the subtle, ingenious way she turns a phrase."--Austin American-Statesman
"Every poem is exquisitely crafted, with crisp, clean lines and imagery that dazzles."--Elizabeth Lund, Washington Post