| Rose
Kelleher, Bundle o' Tinder
Foreword
by Richard Wilbur (Judge of the Anthony Hecht Poetry Prize, 2007)
88
pp, ISBN: 978-1904130-33-8, £7.99 (paperback only),
Publication, November 1st 2008 Post-free
for on-line credit/debit card orders
I
wish to buy this book
A
note about Bundle o' Tinder
From
an acerbic poem on the subject of poetry competitions to a touching meditation
on what might once have been a Neanderthal's flute, from a light-hearted meditation
on the origins of ticklishness to a measured account of her reaction on first
hearing about 9/11, Rose Kelleher's Bundle o' Tinder is a debut collection
of unusual thematic diversity. It is also a collection of unusual formal resourcefulness,
written by a poet immersed in tradition but not in thrall to it.t he
judges foreword
| | |
| |
A note on Rose Kelleher
Rose Kelleher was born in 1964, grew up in Massachusetts and earned her B.A. in
English at UMass Boston. She has worked as a technical writer and programmer,
and authored four computer books and numerous technical articles. Since rediscovering
poetry in recent years, she has published poems and essays in a variety of magazines
including Anon, Atlanta Review, the Dark Horse, First
Things, iota, Measure, the Shit Creek Review, Snakeskin
and Verse Daily and been nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize.
She lives with her husband in Gaithersburg, Maryland. For more information, please
visit her website at http://www.ramblingrose.com/
| | | |
Praise
for Bundle o' Tinder
"Rose Kellehers poems are everywhere the work of a sharp intelligence,
a good heart, and a great technical gift ... Bundle o Tinder is a
thoughtful book ... of wide reference and observation. It is very unlike the claustrally
personal work of which one sees too much at present; at the same time, it is strongly
personal, in the sense that its tone and vision are distinctive and recognizable.
This is that rare thing, a first book in which the poets voice has been
fully found. Richard Wilbur (from the judge's foreword)
Rose
Kelleher has an assured voice and mastery of technique, but hers is not cozy,
complacent poetry. It is non-conformist. Living, and organic, it grapples with
reality in unpredictable and often uncomfortable ways. Paul Stevens,
Editor, The Shit Creek Review This
collection presents a naturally gifted writer who has taken care and pleasure
in becoming consummate in craft. Everywhere there is the striking content, the
surprising development and the deft phrase-making that distinguishes a poet not
just of power and skill, but of grace. Mike Stocks, Editor, Anonted
alike. | |
| |
|
| From
Bundle o' Tinder
Lovesick Dont
look away, you gave me this disease. A carrier, you passed it unawares. My
every cell is altered now; each bears your stamp, a mutant, every drop of me adulterated.
If I could, Id squeeze the stinging poison out. Its in my hair, my
fingernails, each microscopic pair of spiral strands, corrupting by degrees. Geneticists
who study me on slides could piece you back together. My remains will carry
traces, in these scalded veins, of your warm hand; in my triglycerides, and
in the deepest etchings of my brain, theyll find the you my body memorized.
Zeitoun Zeitoun,
Cairo, 1968
What
if you were, as I suspect, a hologram, a Coptic tourist trap, a scam the
mortal eye could not detect? What
if photons, fiddled with, beguiled the eye, glittering in the Cairo sky, a
brilliant flimflam veiled in myth?
What
if the world, wanting a mother, embraced a ruse, thousands of Muslims, Christians,
Jews, fooled into seeing the light together?
And
what if the only light to see is in the faces of foolish crowds in sacred
places? Our Lady of Light, enlighten me.
©
| | |
| |