Telegraph

by Kaya Oakes

Poetry. Winner of the Transcontinental Poetry Prize (editor's choice), Kaya Oakes' TELEGRAPH "charts a coming back to life with uncompromising lucidity and sorrow. In poetry rife with a bodily knowledge of the inherent 'second ness' of women's history, Oakes writes for the one and the many. 'I wonder if this earth meant anything when I leant my form to it,' the personae wonders in the final poem, and wonderfully, readers will find that it does, thanks to the earnest care of Kaya Oakes' making"--Claudia Keelan. Kaya Oakes' work has appeared in Conduit, Volt, MiPoesias, Coconut, Shampoo, and many other journals. The recipient of awards and grants from the Academy of American Poets and the Bay Area Writing Project as well as two Pushcart nominations, she is also the senior editor of Kitchen Sink Magazine, and she teaches writing at the University of California, Berkeley.

Genres: Poetry

80 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2007

About the author

Kaya Oakes is the author of six books, most recently including The Defiant Middle, The Nones Are Alright, and Radical Reinvention. Her sixth book, Not So Sorry, is forthcoming in 2024. Her essays and journalism have appeared in Slate, The New Republic, Foreign Policy, America, Commonweal, Religion News Service, National Catholic Reporter, and many other places. She was born and raised in Oakland, California, where she still lives, and she teaches nonfiction writing at UC Berkeley.

Reviews

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kaya Oakes is a fantastic language manipulator. Her poetry has never been so new and alive, and her words so very well chosen.

[Kaya · Rating 1 out of 5]

One star for the cover. I wrote this book and it's pretty bad and I was really young when this stuff was written and then because it's poetry and I didn't go to Iowa or Breadloaf or whatever it took FOREVER to get it published because I didn't know the right people, but thankfully I think the publisher went under, although I'm not sure because I never heard from them much after it came out, and also, the poetry "community" is a weird bubble of people who are bad at communication so I became a journalist and nonfiction writer and wrote four other books which are MUCH better than this one, you should read those instead.

[Michelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

look for my review in GR soon!