Reverse Rapture

by Dara Wier

Complex and intimate, Reverse Rapture is an account of a band of explorers who go sifting through the artifacts and sensations of our times in search of a core. The generous voices of these poems bring the reader along on their quest. In awe of everything, these explorers, and the poems recounting their adventures, create a gorgeous lyrical web filled with new ways of seeing.

Dara Wier is the author of eight previous collections of poems, most recently Hat on a Pond and Voyages in English. The recipient of awards and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Massachusetts Cultural Council and The American Poetry Review, she teaches at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

Genres: Poetry

160 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2005

About the author

Dara Wier's books include You Good Thing (Wave Books 2013), Selected Poems (Wave Books 2011), Remnants of Hannah (Wave Books 2006), Hat On a Pond (Verse Press 2002), and Voyages in English (Carnegie Mellon 2001). Reverse Rapture (Verse Press 2005), a book length poem in nine-line stanzas in nine-stanza pieces, was selected by Stephen Rodefer for the 2006 Poetry Center Book Award from The American Poetry Archives. Among her works are the limited editions A Civilian's Journal of the War Years (Song Cave), (X In Fix) in Rain Taxi's Brainstorm Series, Fly on the Wall (Oat City Press), and The Lost Epic, co-written with James Tate (Waiting for Godot Books in 1999). Her work has been supported by fellowships and awards from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Massachusetts Cultural Council, and the American Poetry Review. In 2005 she was the Rubin Distinguished Chairholder at Hollins University in Roanoke, Virginia. Her work has appears in American Letters & Commentary, American Poetry Review, Boston Review, Conduit, Denver Quarterly, Fence, Fou, Harvard Review, Iowa Review, jubilat, Maggy, Make, Matter, New American Writing, slope, Volt, Norton's Hybrid Poetry, Best American Poetry, The Pushcart Prize Anthology and elsewhere. She directs the MFA program for Poets and Writers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and co-directs the University of Massachusetts' Juniper Initiative for Literary Arts and Action and The Juniper Summer Writing Institute. Her editing work includes publishing limited edition chapbooks and broadsides with Factory Hollow Press, a part of Flying Object, an arts non-profit in Hadley, Massachusetts. Audio, interviews, and reviews can be found in a website section about Wier's work at Wave Books. Read "A Stick, A Cup, A Bowl, A Comb," in Poetry Daily, "Peach Farm," in Jubilat, and more poems on poetserv.org.. Her monthly column, Inside Undivided, about chance, fate, intention & context is at Flying Object's site.


For more information on this author, go to:
http://www.wavepoetry.com/authors/47-...

Reviews

[Samantha · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an ambitious project to take on as a poetry collection, and the result is that I don't think readers can digest it all in one read. Besides clocking in at 140 pages, which is almost twice the size of a typical poetry book, the poems are all laid out in the same format, making it a pretty epic trek. I appreciate what Dara Wier has taken on in this book, though I don't yet fully understand it. The poetry here is composed of bits and pieces that are thought-provoking on their own and as part of the whole, which is fascinating and also lends itself to the way every line is in parentheses - each of them being a sub-thought and the main idea, all at once. Overall, a very interesting poetic-archaeological type of collection.

[Joe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Engrossing once I got over the sheer length and density of the book (almost 120 pages of 7 line stanzas, each stanza consisting of several phrases or words which are held in relation to each other not by normal punctuation but by parentheses, creating a sliding kind of syntax). Particulars of a desolate seeming world are inspected by a nomadic seeming we/us. Yet these particulars don't seem to be held together in any familiar ways (they have unfamiliar utility), as if the poems take place in a radically depopulated world, one where the infrastructure has broken down. It's all the apocalyptic beauty and some of the terror of the The Road put into a language blender, the result having more humor and less inevitability to it. Invited to fully immerse ourselves in the complications and double meanings Weir gives us by the quality and density of her work, this books deserves much more of my and your attention.

[Patricia Murphy · Rating 4 out of 5]

My purpose for reading this book was to find inspiration for a new poem, and it worked--on page 26, which is much earlier than that often happens. In general, this is a book that takes a lot of work to enter. I don't think I really embraced the rhythm until around page 55. It took until about page 72 to feel a compulsion (desire?) to keep reading. There are a lot of really wonderful moments, but it feels like we have to have a lot of faith to get there. Perhaps that's the whole point.

[Caroline · Rating 2 out of 5]

1) I have complete respect for Wier's vision and experimentation.

2) I feel like I'm supposed to really like this, but I just didn't. Mainly b/c:
a) The parenthetical structure had me feeling like I was struggling for something more than it was worth. They struck me as a distraction and impediment--I kept expecting to grow accustomed to the parentheses so I could enjoy the actual writing, but about halfway through I realized that wasn't going to happen (for me, at least).

b) Every now and then there'd be rhythmic changes that would delight me, but they were few and far between. Since the book (poem?) operates wholly in phrases, the effect is an obsessive-compulsive choppiness. There's nothing wrong with that other than it's sustained for the entire book.

There's some wonderful language here but even if you dig the things I'm faulting, I doubt you would honestly say this book "changed your life" (see one of the many 5-star reviews of Reverse Rapture ).

I think I'll keep trying Wier, though... maybe some of her earlier goods will work for me?

[hh · Rating 3 out of 5]

associative imagery, playful language, and some moments of real insight. i really enjoyed this.

[Eric Sbar · Rating 3 out of 5]

Complex, impressionistic and intense. Somehow I was not as impressed as I thought I would be