Under That Silky Roof

by Elizabeth Robinson

Poetry. The poems of this new collection are concerned with the interplay of domestic life—its companionship, its fecundity, its losses—and manifestations of the abstract or, as she has put it, with "the brick floor from which the/kingdom of God extends/or could extend." "Robinson has reinvented the 'uses of enchantment'"—Ann Lauterbach on APPREHEND. "a poetry of desire in the most complex sense"—Paul Hoover. "What stays a marvel in this impeccable poet's writing is her determination to bridge between the physically given world and that other we gloss with words, yet apprehend insistently as the defining presence of our lives themselves"—Robert Creeley. "Ashbery's pronouns raise more questions than they answer, and Robinson's God works a similar trope...that interplay with manifestations of the abstract is what her poems address, expose, and refuse to back away from"—Beth Anderson.

Genres: Poetry

80 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

Elizabeth Robinson was educated at Bard College, Brown University, and Pacific School of Religion. She currently lives in Boulder, Colorado. With Colleen Lookingbill, she co-edits EtherDome Press. She co-edits Instance Press with Laura Sims and Beth Anderson.

Reviews

[M.W.P.M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Under That Silky Roof is divided into five parts: "Falling Off the Ledge", "Much Else Bluff", "Its Cumulus Infancy", "Hollow Whose Fastenings Dissolve", and "Witness". Unlike the poems of Robinson I have previously read, the poems of Under That Silky Roof are notably short and stark, and yet they still contain the depth of her longer poems.

from "Falling Off the Ledge"...

i

The idea of an edge is
the idea of return

Dismiss tides:
they do not come back

they are recreated

Egg and sperm fall of
the ledge
Commingling

is a loose term for the ocean


ii

A golden egg balances
on the slat of a fence

"I want," he says
hefting it

"But someone put it here
on purpose Leave it
there, so they'll find
it again"
"Then if not this one," he says
"we should get on like it"


iii

The possibility of finding again
fills up all space

We swim on this abstract shore

Irreplaceability

likewise is an idea -
holding to one's breast
the singular thing

Foam, gritty water, and waves
all expand


iv

The next day
the golden egg is still there

Fog erases the boundaries
of the coast, underlining them

Small bodies sleep in amniotic
mist, but roll slowly

absently, toward the precipice
Such arms as hypothesis

prepare to catch them


v

Golden egg on the narrow
shelf Maternal sunlight

licks a finger to dab
the face clean Things

drift in and out . . . poorly
erased Occasionally

the egg tumbles but never breaks

From the curb, passersby

do their best to put it back
in its original place


vi

Be reminded that
to coast also to glide

No use in evaluating:
there's irrevocable movement

among the silver leaves
which guard that golden

substance in the nest

or pickets

- Coast, pg. 11-16

from "Much Else Bluff"...

i

But
it's not morning

The commentary
I claim

a stolen bed
is more safe

as he falls upon me
the softness of algae

saying good-bye
upside down


ii

One would
leave the jaw open herself

permitting its hear to come in

its ache, back to the door

herself

interrupting itself
with ringing

These currents

belling, counter-clockwise or not


iii

The floor
and its rising voice

being tunes

- Matutinal, pg. 19-20

from "Its Cumulus Infancy"...

i

In the loaf of bread
this core

of undissolved milk

Container to be placed
on a sleeping woman's chest

(It is always sleeping)

this mute, its thingness

To fold involuntarily

or to make covenant


The quality of bread as protection

as its sleep wanders elsewhere


ii

The leg cannot fold
into the chest

Its lassitude:
ripe fruit pressed into gut or groin

And both concluding

the same way,
appearing able to continue


iii

Her

corporeal reference

pointing liquidly to omission,

to what unfooted augmentation -


What promise charges this:

like an embryo, at a slant,

unavailing


iv

Discharged its harm

The promise is to uncover the cavity,

to mispronounce, to contract

would be a portent of expansion


To watch, for example, to observe by duty

what rises, lamed and silken in its poured state


v

Hand, hand, foot, and that correct side

undissolved in the interior

These things cannot be detached
from the globe indicated by chance

The interlocking fingers


Inside this hidden refreshment

the planet cannot demur its secret population
She would hobble there now, intersecting vows

- Right Side, pg. 38-42

from "Hollow Whose Fastenings Dissolve"...

i

The pool
who counters gravity
digests

anew
or multiple

the pool itself, frond-like


Its fleshly theory

From the breeze falls a gesture

Pruned and fragrant aspiration


ii

You see the blandishments

Sun on his human chest

Awkward, making way


Parts strewn along a figurative hallway

bright through

his way of distress, held fast


Glare over
swelter:
a fist studded in his mouth

Upward of novelty
his genuine newness


iii.

Reflection swayed re-
collection

as if this, a centre or hump -

How can the new one
enunciate

his nocturnal head

amid what sustains

so distinct

and what nourishes

Awaken
splayed

facing the mirror


iv

Divided by halves:
which wee hour

revises all?

A hollow whose fastenings

dissolve

Vagrant:

in the middle of those who breathe, air wanders


v

This late, single knowledge
clad in warmth

Suffusing the end
he drops off

The study required
in similarities

The pleasure of how

over-

due the reflection it is


vi

Not deriding perfection
but counting on it

to backtrack
loudly

Lost, abrupted, behind

as to the ear:

astonishment of
waves, hummed interruption


vii

As far as the eye can see

the legs of the breath, every animal
and human

Snoring, their moist brown leaves

Respiring
who waits outside the door

or recovering
with so patient a grasp

Comprises

Arranges some intentions

unevenly its white lung-like piece


viii

His unintentional box-shaped, bed-like

Retrieval

is shaped as a room


Transcribed sideways, the door

in the darkness

appetite's shape


ix

Extracting a sample
who scrawls

sees the script floating


from its kneeling position

This life

This life holds only
the hear at bay

holds purely descriptive function


x

Truth in the form of a knob

turned in a doorless way

The summer he was made to consider
vanishes

again and over

Reflection's twin


xi

Three steps forward,
one askew

The cipher

untended in a large house

Message of the noon

Mug

of water
dipped from the pool Unsteady gait

welling out
its own arrival


xii

Reservoir
as that small body without symmetry

requited again

We hold the face

or this

very near

Ledge:

so much
by range of sight

- Reservoir, pg. 51-62

from "Witness"...

i

This is how infinitely small things come to rest

They are not captive, but in relation to enclosure

who sidles out


When the mother sleeps, she has no speech,
but breathes falteringly

Alone, the bed's surface touches
a kind of skin

If the child were to have a mouth, it would be
open, and its eyes too


partially aslant


ii

How do I dedicate

the poles of a shrinking pivot

reworded as my son

Wh-what is the blanket made of,

how do we hang there


iii

If a woman were enough preoccupied
with shrinkage

she might have a small child

'Enough' is the sense of it

A mother stutters


The redundancy is tiredness,
could it be made drowsiness

There they are in the bed

The child is a pea under the mattress
they balance so high over

- Hammock, pg. 71-73

[Benjamin Niespodziany · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of my favorite poets. To read her work is to meditate, to slow your breathing, to float.