The Veronica Maneuver Contributor(s): Moore, Jennifer (Author) |
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ISBN: 1629220299 ISBN-13: 9781629220291 Publisher: University of Akron Press OUR PRICE: $22.50 Product Type: Hardcover - Other Formats Published: September 2015 |
Additional Information |
BISAC Categories: - Poetry | American - General |
Dewey: 811.6 |
LCCN: 2015029030 |
Physical Information: 0.4" H x 6.2" W x 9.3" (0.55 lbs) 64 pages |
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
Publisher Description: Jennifer Moore's debut collection takes its title from a bullfighting technique in which the matador draws the bull with his cape; in these poems, however, traditional moves are reconfigured and roles are subverted. In a broader sense, the word veronica (from the Latin vera, or true and the Greek eikon, or image) functions as a frame for exploring the nature of visual experience, and underscores a central question: how do we articulate events or emotions that evade clear understanding? In order to do so, the figures here perform all manner of transformations: from vaudeville star to cartoonist's daughter, from patron saint to Blue-Eyed Torera; they are soothsayers, apothecaries, curators, often conjuring selves out of thin air. This dilating and shape-shifting of perspective becomes a function of identity: the absorber and the absorbed become one. Indeed, both speaker and listener must be crafted-willed into being-by each other (Be your own maestro), and are apparitions until then. Through a flick of the wrist or a trick of the eye, these speakers understand that construction of a self comes only through performance of that self--which performances are often punctuated with a wink, an unswerving gaze, or both at once. |