{"id":749,"date":"2007-06-29T00:54:16","date_gmt":"2007-06-29T06:54:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/?p=749"},"modified":"2007-06-29T00:55:07","modified_gmt":"2007-06-29T06:55:07","slug":"poetry-friday-eireann-lorsung","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/?p=749","title":{"rendered":"Poetry Friday: \u00c9ireann Lorsung"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img src='http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/06\/music-for-landing.jpg' alt='Music for Landing Planes By' \/>This week&#8217;s happy accident: I got a catalog from a nonprofit literary press, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.milkweed.org\/\"><strong>Milkweed Editions<\/strong><\/a>. And in said catalog I find a book of poetry from an author who is totally new to me, <a href=\"http:\/\/eireannlorsung.ohbara.com\/\"><strong>\u00c9ireann Lorsung<\/strong><\/a>. Already I&#8217;m in love with the title &#8211; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.milkweed.org\/component\/page,shop.product_details\/flypage,shop.flypage\/product_id,832\/category_id,52\/option,com_phpshop\/Itemid,8\/\"><em><strong>Music For Landing Planes By<\/strong><\/em><\/a> &#8211; and the cover art, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mnartists.org\/work.do?rid=109066\"><strong>&#8220;Plenty&#8221;<\/strong><\/a> by Jennifer Davis. And the blurb mentions Lorsung&#8217;s website, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ohbara.com\/\"><strong>ohbara.com<\/strong><\/a>, where she sells her handmade crafts and clothing. So I checked it out. The clothes and pillows are cute, in an <a href=\"http:\/\/www.anthropologie.com\/anthro\/index.jsp\"><strong>Anthropologie<\/strong><\/a> kind of way. And she makes these shadow-box things that look like <a href=\"http:\/\/www.etsy.com\/view_listing.php?listing_id=6103641\"><strong>this<\/strong><\/a>, which I like very much.<\/p>\n<p>But the real happy accident here is that, in the book&#8217;s description in the catalog, they include a complete poem, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.milkweed.org\/component\/page,shop.product_details\/flypage,shop.flypage\/product_id,832\/category_id,52\/option,com_phpshop\/Itemid,8\/\"><strong>&#8220;Dressmaker.&#8221;<\/strong><\/a> And&#8230; wow. I&#8217;m reminded again what it is poetry can do better than any other medium. The imagery is firmly grounded in the tangible and everyday &#8211; cloth, pins, scissors. This, plus the terseness of the phrases, the almost argumentative tone, gives the poem a raw elemental feel that perfectly underscores the theme. Here&#8217;s a taste:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Nothing touches like tan velvet touches<br \/>\nthe palm. Now the cracks come, because what gives<br \/>\nwithout taking?\u2013Doesn\u2019t exist. Say<\/p>\n<p>you forget what is lanolin, what is raw about fleece<br \/>\nuncarded &#038; unwashed. Say the silver feel<br \/>\nof charmeuse lines your sleep. You\u2019ve lost<\/p>\n<p>what there was before pins &#038; needles, sound<br \/>\na scissors makes through cloth on a hardwood floor,<br \/>\nthick waist of the dressmaker\u2019s dummy&#8230;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Read the rest <a href=\"http:\/\/www.milkweed.org\/component\/page,shop.product_details\/flypage,shop.flypage\/product_id,832\/category_id,52\/option,com_phpshop\/Itemid,8\/\"><strong>here<\/strong><\/a>. And another poem, &#8220;Volans,&#8221; is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.crabcreekreview.org\/ccr_volume19\/volans.html\"><strong>here<\/strong><\/a>. Now I&#8217;m off to find her book&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This week&#8217;s happy accident: I got a catalog from a nonprofit literary press, Milkweed Editions. And in said catalog I find a book of poetry from an author who is totally new to me, \u00c9ireann Lorsung. Already I&#8217;m in love with the title &#8211; Music For Landing Planes By &#8211; and the cover art, &#8220;Plenty&#8221; [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry-friday"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/749","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=749"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/749\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}