Profane Halo

by Gillian Conoley

Conscious of politics and of music, these poems continue Conoley’s explorations into the questions of grace and redemption, self and other, death in life, language and being, democracy and song. This collection takes its title from Italian philosopher and critic Giorgio Agamben’s notion of a post-rapturous world whose figures roam the earth, striving to find new community, new meaning. Gillian Conoley ’s collections include Lovers in the Used World , Beckon , Tall Stranger (nominee for the National Book Critics Circle Award), Some Gangster Pain and the chapbooks Woman Speaking Inside Film Noir and Fatherless Afternoon . Winner of several Pushcart Prizes, the Jerome J. Shestack Award in Poetry and included in Best American Poetry , she is poet-in-residence and professor at Sonoma State University, where she is the founder and editor of Volt .

Genres: Poetry

72 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2005

About the author

Gillian Conoley (born 1955) is an American poet, the author of seven collections of poetry. Her work has been anthologized widely, most recently in Norton’s American Hybrid, Counterpath’s Postmodern Lyricisms, Mondadori’s Nuova Poesia Americana (Italian), and Best American Poetry. Conoley's poetry has appeared in Conjunctions, New American Writing, American Poetry Review, The Canary, A Public Space, Carnet de Rouge, Jacket, Or, Fence, Verse, Ironwood, jubilat, Zyzzyva, Ploughshares, the Denver Quarterly, the Missouri Review and other publications. A recipient of the Jerome J. Seshtack Poetry Prize from The American Poetry Review, as well as several Pushcart Prizes, she is Professor and Poet-in-Residence at Sonoma State University,[1] where she is the founder and editor of Volt. She has taught as a Visiting Poet at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop at the University of Iowa, the University of Denver, Vermont College, and Tulane University.

Reviews

[Simone · Rating 5 out of 5]

absolutely dazzling. conoley is truly carrying the flame of the language poets above her head like a (pardon the cheekiness) profane halo. i have a feeling i will be running and returning to this over and over again in the next few years. really great stuff. fantastic. ugh.

[Nicholas Trandahl · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rife with tension, collapse, and some sort of rejuvenation, the poems of “Profane Halo” are a postmodern descent into the formless abyss and the revelation that we can all begin again. Gillian Conoley’s work will stick with me.

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

New work by one of the most admired poets now writing, at the top of her achievement: sass, common sense, intellect, and wit.

[Haley · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book when it first came out and it felt like an invention. This time around, it felt like truth. It was perfectly in sync with this moment. Amazing.