Author Description

Product Description This delightfully subversive collection of poems further develops the form used by the author in Paragraphs (1978). The book is divided into three sections. The first, "The Art of Photography and Other Sorrows," is devoted to, among other things, actual photographs, including the only known picture of Baudelaire's mother. "Bestiary," the second part, concerns ordinary household items like salt and pepper shakers, ironing boards, and tea pots seen metaphorically. "Little-Known Sports," the title section, explores fierce but rarely reported athletic events such as answering the telephone or getting into bed. The result is a quiet but profound transformation of everyday reality. From Booklist The titular activities are such things as "Answering the Telephone," "Stupidity," "Being Hopeless," and even "Frogs and Ponds," and they make up the last third of this collection. The first is "The Art of Photography and Other Sorrows," which, besides including a piece on the sole picture of Baudelaire's mother, addresses such "sorrows" as "Fog," "Offering Consolation," and "Lecturers"; while the second is a "Bestiary" of such creatures as "Ironing Board," "Attic," "Cobwebs," and "Desk Blotter." Yes, this is a collection of whimsies, which Rutsala casts in prose yet calls poetry despite a lack of either the artifices (rhyme, meter, metaphor, etc.) or sonorities (assonance, alliteration, etc.) one expects of poetry. Well, it may not be poetry, but it is fun, of a mild sort. Ray Olson About the Author Professor of English at Lewis and Clark College, Vern Rutsala has published eight previous books of poetry, including his Selected Poems (1991).