Increase by Lia Purpura

Increase by Lia Purpura

This is Lia Purpura's chronicle of her pregnancy, the birth of her son, Joseph, and the first year of his life. She recounts her journey with the heightened awareness of a mother-to-be and through the eyes of a poet.

'Since Joseph was born, this yearning has formed itself, materialized as a desire for a visible, outward sign of attachment' Lia Purpura says in Increase, clearly setting before us the visible, outward signs of the world in which she is made anew by love for a childThis is precise, beautiful writing, made more lovely and urgent by the 'eye of compassion' she praises elsewhere.

-- Carol Muske

After reading Increase, I imagine that Lia Purpura might be interesting about any subject she decides to take on. She turns journal entries about her pregnancy and the first year of her son's life into an evocation of a sensibility, and finally, into literature. I love the way her sentences move, and how they nimbly bear the weight of the complex intelligence behind them.

-- Stephen Dunn

This powerful, crafted book is, at one level, a meditation on pregnancy and birth, on the giving and gathering of time. But at a deeper level it is a true and eloquent addition to the literature of self-knowledge. What makes this book so strong is that throughout its sustained, lyrical meditation we observe not just a child growing towards birth, but a self growing towards self-definition. This is an adventure in style and music that draws the reader in and offers surprises and truths at every turn.

-- Eavan Boland

Increase understands the nature of its own title—the noun and verb of it, the willing participation and the quiescent acceptance. This book chronicles gestation and birth, an indelible record of eighteen months, giving birth itself to beautifully crafted sentences that mirror the shape of thought. Deeply introspective, the interior voice here delves into the experience of nature as well as the nature of experience. Outside, the cyclical seasons manifest themselves in vivd images; inside, the season of birth has its own unfolding rhythm. The result is a fusion of the measured and the lyrical. By turns contemplative, forthright, or questioning, Increase offers not ideology but insight—language in service of individual perception. Time is the subject here, the way we are its unthinking embodiement, the way language allows us to take its measure, eventually to understand. In the end, in yielding to time her child's separate life, this sequence of brief, still moments achieves active wisdom.

-- Judith Kitchen

Awe is one of many things a reader can gain from reading Increase. Here we are in the hands of an original-thinking Madonna, one who sees honeycombs in the playpen mesh and bathwater as a silver scarf. She reminds us that the miracle of birth is real to someone all the time, and that everyone, even the murderous terrorist on the evening news, started out as somebody's baby.

-- Fourth Genre

Through the eyes of a poet, Lia Purpura explores the challenges of the first year of motherhood in a series of lyrical essays. . . . For mothers, bystanders, and armchair dreamers, Purpura offers an insightful itinerary.

-- Publishers Weekly

LIA PURPURA is the author of seven collections of essays, poems, and translations. Her essay collection On Looking was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Her other honors include Guggenheim, NEA, and Fulbright Fellowships, three Pushcart Prizes, and inclusion in the Best American Essays anthology series. Purpura is a writer in residence at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and also teaches in the Rainier Writing Workshop MFA Program.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780820348407
ISBN 10	0820348406
Title	Increase
Author	Lia Purpura
Series	The Sue William Silverman Prize For Creative Nonfiction
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	University of Georgia Press
Year published	2015-03-15
Number of pages	152
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.