{"product_id":"barnett-catherine-into-perfepb","title":"Barnett, Catherine: Into Perfect Spheres Such Holes Are Pierced","description":"\u003cp\u003eAlice James Books, paperback\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePublication Date: May 1, 2004\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePublisher Marketing: The family response to the sudden deaths of the speaker's two young nieces is at the center of Catherine Barnett's award-winning first collection. This series of elegies records the transit of grief, observing with an unflinching eye how a singular traumatic event can permanently alter our understanding of time, danger, the material world and family. Marked by clarity and restraint, these lyric poems narrate a suspenseful, wrenching story that explores the depths and limits of empathy.\u003cbr data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cbr data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\"Living Room Altar\"\u003cbr data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cbr data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eExcept for the shirt pulled from the ocean,\u003cbr data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eexcept for her hands, which keep folding the shirt,\u003cbr data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eexcept for her body, which once held their bodies,\u003cbr data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003emy sister wants everything back now--\u003cbr data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eIf there were a god who could out of empty shells\u003cbr data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003ecarried by waves to shore\u003cbr data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003emake amends--\u003cbr data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eIf the ocean saved in a jar\u003cbr data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003ecould keep from turning to salt--\u003cbr data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eShe's hearing things:\u003cbr data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003ebird calling to bird,\u003cbr data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003ecat outside the door,\u003cbr data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003ethorn of the blackberry against the trellis.\u003cbr data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eThese heart-breaking poems of an all-too-human life stay as absolute as the determined craft which made them. There is finally neither irony nor simple despair in what they record. Rather, it is the far deeper response of witness, of recognizing what must be acknowledged and of having the courage and the care to say so. --Robert Creeley\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Open Books: A Poem Emporium","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":40679348043799,"sku":"9781882295456","price":13.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0004\/6497\/7956\/products\/view_archive_0629d7cb-6475-4873-9ddf-e3354b0f8ac5.jpg?v=1697661536","url":"https:\/\/open-books-a-poem-emporium.myshopify.com\/products\/barnett-catherine-into-perfepb","provider":"Open Books: A Poem Emporium","version":"1.0","type":"link"}