{"product_id":"a-protocol-for-touch-9781574410839","title":"A Protocol for Touch","description":"\u003cp\u003e\"Constance Merritt is a poet to defeat categories, to oppose 'the tyranny of names' with a poetry that sets its own terms of encounter, its 'protocols of touch'--tender and austere, formal and intimate at once. Hers is a voice with many musics, sufficiently rich, nuanced and various to express, maintain poise and wrest meaning from the powerful cross-currents in which the heart is torn. I have seldom seen intelligence equal to such a scorching degree of intensity, or mastery of form so equal to passion's contradictory occasions. Merritt's prosodic range is prodigious--she moves in poetic forms as naturally as a body moves in its skin, even as her lines ring with the cadenced authority of a gifted and schooled ear. Here, in her words, the iambic ground bass is in its vital questioning mode: \"The heart's insistent undersong: how live?\/how live? How live?\" this poetry serves no lesser necesssity than to ask that.\"--Eleanor Wilner\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBetween us, how we wrestle over words\u003cbr\u003e Strain to wring some blessing from the silence, \u003cbr\u003e Deliverance from violence, its fear, its lure, \u003cbr\u003e The tyranny of names: night day, \u003cbr\u003e Sable and alabaster, flint shale, \u003cbr\u003e Steel and lace. Who among us can afford\u003cbr\u003e To speak the language--any language--rightly?\u003cbr\u003e As if it weren't enough to bear one heart\u003cbr\u003e Eternally divided in its chambers?\u003cbr\u003e We stand close enough to touch. We do\u003cbr\u003e Not touch. Between us burns a sword of fire, \u003cbr\u003e A rusted turnstile glinting in the sun.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Constance Merritt\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eBinding Type:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e University of North Texas Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 02\/02\/2000\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSeries:\u003c\/b\u003e Vassar Miller Prize in Poetry #7\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 86\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.36lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 9.04h x 6.01w x 0.38d\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN:\u003c\/b\u003e 9781574410839","brand":"University of North Texas Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43111818461321,"sku":"9781574410839","price":12.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0636\/9240\/6921\/files\/img_4a85113e-230a-46c8-9d88-ef945fdf3242.jpg?v=1730795803","url":"https:\/\/sonsanddaughtersbooks.com\/products\/a-protocol-for-touch-9781574410839","provider":"Sons and Daughters Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}