Breathing in Portuguese, Living in English
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Breathing in Portuguese, Living in English by Heather Tosteson
Cada lingua concebe outra eu, /every language conceives another I, / igualmente essencial, new, Heather Tosteson writes in Breathing in Portuguese, Living in English. Exploring through a new language and life in another hemisphere what it means to be in the third stage, terceira idade, of a well-lived life, the poet realizes that she has come here to live into the reality of my own mortality, a reality that holds powerful fulfillment as well as loss. In these poems she invites us to join her as she listens for unsung hymns ready to soar--within single words that taste like mamao or sound like happy do; the ravishing howl of a man striding down the street, lost inside o seu som; the o puro barulho, pure hubbub of Brazilian streets; the isolation of the traveler; the restless silence of a distant, dying father; the rush of waves bringing her o lixo, trash, and o tesouro inestimavel, priceless treasure. The inventive interplay of the two languages in Breathing in Portuguese, Living in English reminds me of the lively bi-tonal musical compositions of Prokofiev or Darius Milhaud. Every thought contains its counterpart, spoken or unspoken; every memory--even the most painful--has another side. Anger shapes some of the poems as want shapes waste, but love is ever present, dizzy with glee and grief. Dazzling Fred Chappell, author of Midquest and Spring Garden: New and Selected Poems, recipient of the T.S. Eliot, Bollingen, and Aiken Taylor Prizes; North Carolina Poet Laureate Heather Tosteson's openness to experience is reflected in the openness, range, and breadth of her poems, which want to take in A.R.Ammons' 'nothing less than everything.' She is an instinctive poet. She is bold, direct, subversive and original in the explosive ways in which she confronts the limits of human possibility through those made possible through language. Don't miss this. Mark Rudman, author of The Rider Quintet, for which he received The National Book Critics Circle Award
Tosteson, Heather: - HEATHER TOSTESON, a writer and visual artist, is the author of The Philosophical Transactions of Maria van Leeuwenhoek Antoni's Dochter, Sanctity of the Moment: Poems from Four Decades, Visible Signs, Hearts as Big as Fists & Other Stories, and God Speaks My Language, Can You? She has received a Nation/Discovery prize for her poetry and fellowships for poetry, fiction, and photography from MacDowell, Yaddo, VCCA and Hambidge. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing (UNC-Greensboro) and PhD in English and Creative Writing (Ohio University). She has co-edited fourteen Wising Up anthologies, including Crossing Class; Surprised by Joy; Siblings: Our First Macrocosm; Daring to Repair; Complex Allegiances: Constellations of Immigration, Citizenship & Belonging; and View from the Bed: View from the Bedside. She lives in Atlanta with her husband Charles Brockett.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780982693315 |
| ISBN 10 | 0982693311 |
| Title | Breathing in Portuguese, Living in English |
| Author | Heather Tosteson |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Wising Up Press |
| Year published | 2014-01-25 |
| Number of pages | 76 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |