Poetry that weaves personal narratives with deep political insights, masterfully exploring the intricate intersections of history, philosophy, and emotion In this debut collection, renowned scholar Rosalind Morris spans the lyrical landscapes of personal experience and global political dilemmas. Organized into four distinct sections, each featuring seven poems that vary in style and content, For Lack of a Dictionary reflects the diverse facets of human complexity and the struggle to find a language capable of addressing them. Beginning with a mythopoetic exploration of the self and progressing through varied voices and forms-from the epistolary and the erotic to the elegiac-the collection navigates the absences and presences that shape our interpersonal connections. From Homer's Iliad to Hobbes's Leviathan, and from the intimate letters of the Rosenbergs to the television broadcasts of lunar landings, Morris revisits epic figures of classical literature with a contemporary voice, concluding with poignant reflections on personal loss and the seductive allure of magical thinking in times of grief. In the tradition of Adrienne Rich and Muriel Rukeyser, Morris engages in a dialogue that challenges and enlightens, positioning For Lack of a Dictionary as a profound commentary on the intersections of personal and political realms.
Rosalind Morris, Professor of Anthropology at Columbia University, is a prolific writer and scholar. Her recent books include Unstable Ground: The Lives, Deaths, and Afterlives of Gold in South Africa and Accounts and Drawings from Underground, co-created with William Kentridge. Recognized with Rockefeller and Guggenheim fellowships, a Berlin Prize, and residencies at prestigious institutions, as well as film festival prizes, Morris's academic and creative works traverse disciplinary boundaries with artfulness, courage, and precision. Visit www.rosalindcmorris.com for more.
If I Am If I Am Six 3 If I Am Seven 5 Ten in the Library 7 Eleven: Grammar Lessons 8 Befindlichkeit 9 The New Girl 11 Patty Hearst Pays a Visit 13 Everyone Burns Their Witches Fear and I Are Twins 17 Huntsville, TX 21 If in a Tomb 27 Letter to the Front in a Time of AIDS 34 Late Night News 36 Here and There 37 Blue 39 Ways of Seeing Dreaming Eden 43 Eyeless in Summer 45 K, Accountant 48 Blackest Above the Abattoir 51 Variorum on Emily Dickinson's Bluebird 53 The Astronaut in Isolation 55 Ways of Seeing (a Memory of Italy) 56 Something Gets Planted The Moons of Fifty 61 Transit of Mercury 66 Reading Dante in St. John the Divine Cathedral 67 Hudson River Rhapsody 68 Latenight, Called by You 70 Sappho's Foot 71 Something Gets Planted 73 Notes and Acknowledgments 77
Rosalind Morris's sonorous For Lack of a Dictionary reads like the answer to prayers I don't quite remember making. But I must have made them. Because, line by line, poem by poem that's the feeling: thanks. From the beckoning in 'Memory gives up / what starlight won't forget' to the bracing in 'human order: / everyone burns their witches, ' my thanks to this poet for re-measuring the meeting of metabolic onrush in what's lyrical with the restraint, deliberate, knowing and knowledge require.---Ed Pavlic, author of Outward: Adrienne Rich's Expanding Solitudes
