Strings Attached by Diane Decillis
In Strings Attached, poet Diane DeCillis takes inspiration from the story of the elephant calf with a thin rope tied to its leg. Even when it grows into a massive animal, the elephant thinks the same string still restrains it and never attempts to break free. This powerful, funny and sometimes self-deprecating collection considers all the ways that strings bind us in relationships and explores their constant tightening and loosening. Although we may never sever the strings attached to our wounds, DeCillis shows that when given enough slack we can create the illusion of having been set free. The poems in Strings Attached consider tension in a variety of relationships. The short string of an American girl raised in Detroit by a resentful Lebanese grandmother whose culture values boys over girls. The attachment to a strong mother who exemplifies feminism but who is mostly absent in order to support the family. The cosmopolitan father who abandons but captivates and the strings of relationships with older men, built on longing for the missing father. The long strings of a secret life that teach you to be distant. The strings that cuff you to your home and the triumph of loosening them after years of agoraphobia. The frayed strings that come from being too American in a Lebanese culture. The strings of food and tradition that connect to family and friends. DeCillis’s verse reflects an insistent search for identity and the happy discovery that outsider status can be a good thing, a kind of earned badge that provides new ways of seeing. All poetry readers will relate to the personal and perceptive verse of this debut collection.
Diane DeCillis’s poetry has been nominated for two Pushcart Prizes and Best American Poetry. She was awarded the Crucible Poetry Prize and Ocean Prize and won the MacGuffin National Poet Hunt. Her work has appeared in CALYX, The North Atlantic Review, Nimrod International Journal, Connecticut Review, Gastronomica and numerous other journals. She is co-editor of Mona Poetica, an anthology dedicated to the Mona Lisa and until recently owned an award-winning art gallery in Birmingham, Michigan.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780814340134 |
| ISBN 10 | 081434013X |
| Title | Strings Attached |
| Author | Diane Decillis |
| Series | Made In Michigan Writers Series |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Wayne State University Press |
| Year published | 2014-04-30 |
| Number of pages | 108 |
| Prizes | Winner of Michigan Notable Books 2015 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |