The Fact of the Matter

Moving from the mundane to the profound, first through observation of fact and matter, then shifting perspective, engaging a deeper sense of self, these poems re-imagine things great and small, making us care deeply about the world around us.

In this cultivated and intricately crafted collection, Sally Keith shows the self as a crucible of force--that which compels us to exert ourselves upon the world, and meanwhile renders us vulnerable to it. Force by which a line unfurls--as in Robert Smithson's colossal Spiral Jetty--or leads with forward motion--a train hurdling along the west-reaching railroad; Edweard Muybridge's photographic reels charting animal and human locomotion.

With poems remarkable in their clarity, captivating in their matter-of-factness, Keith examines the impossible and inevitable privacy of being a person in the world, meanwhile negotiating an inexorable pull toward the places we call home--one we alternately try and fail to resist.

Author: Sally Keith
Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Milkweed Editions
Published: 11/13/2012
Pages: 88
Weight: 0.26lbs
Size: 7.80h x 5.80w x 0.50d
ISBN: 9781571314482