Distributed for Oberlin College Press
My Life in Heaven
My Life in Heaven, the 2012 FIELD Poetry Prize winner, is “striking in its subtlety, complexity, and utterly distinctive voice,” according to the prize judges David Young and David Walker. These moment-to-moment explorations of intimacy’s intricacies use the power of the poetic line to illuminate the relationship of self to the beloved, nature, and the divine. This is a book of love poems, romancing the line between self and other. My Life in Heaven will stun readers who admire the best of contemporary American poetry in the vein of Donald Revell, Brenda Hillman, Charles Wright, and Jean Valentine. Samyn’s poems sing with the elusive fire of Emily Dickinson.
Table of Contents
THE MOON THROUGH A SKYLIGHT • Let’s Be Serious Now • Just Say When • At Glen Lake vs. The Birth of Anger • Speaking of Ferocity at Sunset • The Key is How • The Moon Through a Skylight • Shark Shark Shark, or Whatever It Is That You Want Next • OCTOBERISH • In Answer to Your Burning Question • I’m Telling You the Story of Right Now • You Got Your Wish; I Got Mine • Octoberish • You Can Thank Me Later • Happy Birthday, Everything! • Tell Me Something Good • Want and Need • CUP AND STRING • Flesh and Language • Fascinated Is More Like It • Take It Back • Let Me Introduce You • More Perfect • I Know You Know • Cup and String • Please Do • A LITTLE JANUARY • This Is the Forrest; Do You Like It? • True for Good • A Little January • A Painted Sun • As a Consequence • Technological • In the Process of Making It Better • Wouldn’t It Be Dreamy? • FAR AS I CAN SEE, NEAR AS I CAN TELL • Far as I Can See, Near as I Can Tell • Some Kind of Lifetime • By the Way, Hello • What Do You Mean What Do You Mean-? • Stupidity, Crabbiness, Moorings & Love • It’s Never Just a Minute with You • A Question and Its Answer • Bluebell Report • Do You Want Me to Parse It Out? • A Covered Bridge • I Had My Castle Before You Had Your Fortress • She Named It Beauty • Bluebell Report • It’s Not a Poem, It’s a Novel • AGAIN WITH THE HONEYSUCKLE • Forever and Ever and Ever • Again with the Honeysuckle • I Want Your Kisses • All Those Mysteries and All That • It Was What It Was • It’s Tomorrow, Dear • Acts of Experience • JUNE FOR GOOD • A Fine Romance, or Here’s Never for You • Quite a Pink • A Little Tawny Owl • Little Noon • My Life in Heaven • The Deer Doesn’t Go Looking for the Hunter • A Quiet Tomorrow • LITTLE MUCHNESS • Little Muchness • I Would Welcome That • What Remoteness • Tending the Nectar • Knowing Full Well • Two Things at Once • Upon Reflection • Notes • Acknowledgments