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Order, or Disorder

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"This is poetry of the first order, the work of an original, resourceful writer. The poems are passionate, they are intelligent, they are beautiful, marked equally by their haunting music and their sensuous, loss-touched images. Her language caresses and celebrates the coutours and textures of the world as body, even as it reveals an unshakable longing for something beyond it. " -- Wayne Dodd

66 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 1995

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Amy Newman

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Profile Image for Kristine Muslim.
Author 111 books185 followers
February 24, 2012
Order, Or Disorder is replete with themes that touch on mortality and spirituality. What I love about Amy Newman’s brand of poetry is the earthy and impenetrable-but-there air. Her dose of honesty is delivered in a devious way.

Excerpted from “Parallax,” the poem that contained the titular line:

.... Scrape off the shavings
like the allowance of sin.



This one is from “River,” my favorite piece in the book. It is the very antithesis of sappy and inspiring nature poetry.

Winter froze the first half-foot of river straight down
solid, gray-green, encasing
what rushed beneath it. There are underneaths, enclosures,
contents. Frames, windows, houses, channels,
conduits, arteries, riverbanks. I’m afraid the snow
will press on coming summer’s grasses.
The river hangs names like bodies in the cold trees.



Order, Or Disorder is an excruciatingly varied and complex masterpiece. Each poem is well-thought. Each line break is unquestionably contrived to quicken the breathing a little. Each blow is delivered subtly, lovingly.
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