An Individual History

Poems

22 August 2012

Description

A cycle of pathbreaking poems about the history of a family set against the backdrop of the last century.

An Individual History describes the fears, anger, and guilt—personal, familial, societal, political, and historical—that comprise a life. The figure of the speaker’s maternal grandmother who was institutionalized for five decades serves as an overriding metaphor for this haunting, bold new work by an essential American poet.

from “An Individual History

This was before the time of lithium and Zoloft
before mood stabilizers and anxiolytics
and almost all the psychotropic drugs, but not before
    thorazine,
which the suicide O’Laughlin called “handcuffs for the
   mind.”
It was before, during, and after the time of atomic
   fallout,
Auschwitz, the Nakba, DDT, and you could take water
    cures,
find solace in quarantines, participate in shunnings,
or stand at Lourdes among the canes and crutches.

Reviews

"Collier’s sixth collection engages with childhood, fatherhood, and family life, in the living present and memorial past, a history explored with brilliantly precise detail and originality of perspective." — Publishers Weekly

"Though the wide-ranging content of these highly personal poems may seem catch-as-catch-can, it’s clear that for the poet they are hard-won fragments in the effort to assemble a coherent sense of selfhood, a quest many readers will recognize." — Library Journal

Hardback

9780393082494

163 x 216 mm • 80 pages

£20.99

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Standalone Ebook

9780393239218

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