Curves to the Apple: The Reproduction of Profiles, Lawn of Excluded Middle, Reluctant Gravities

by Rosmarie Waldrop

Rosmarie Waldrop's Curves to the Apple brings together three highly praised and influential titles: The Reproduction of Profiles, Lawn of Excluded Middle, and Reluctant Gravities. Though originally published separately, these prose poems have always been intended as a loose trilogy of thought and feelingor of thought manifested as feeling. The author comments: "Just as the title Curves to the Apple combines the organic and geometry (not to mention myth and history of science) the poems navigate the conflicting, but inextricable claims of body and mind, especially the female body and feelings in a space of logic and physics. The poems could all be called dialogic, reaching out across a synaptic (sometimes humorous) gap to a possible 'you' (though it may be rhetorical, another point of view in the same mind). But while the 'I' dominates the first two volumes, the third gives both voices equal space and chance."

Genres: Poetry

196 pages, Paperback

First published September 17, 2006

About the author

Rosmarie Waldrop (born August 24, 1935), née Sebald, is a contemporary American poet, translator and publisher. Born in Germany, she has lived in the United States since 1958. She has lived in Providence, Rhode Island since the late 1960s. Waldrop is coeditor and publisher of Burning Deck Press, as well as the author or coauthor (as of 2006) of 17 books of poetry, two novels, and three books of criticism.

Reviews

[C.A.]

The first of the three book, "The Reproduction of Profiles," was given to me for my birthday many years ago. That and the second book, "Lawn of the Excluded Middle" remain some of my favorite poems I have ever read. Waldrop is better known as a translator to some, but to me she is her own poet, and always will be. ONE OF THE BEST LIVING POETS!

[Nikki]

This book encompasses three books of Waldrop’s poetry: The Reproduction of Profiles, Lawn of Excluded Middle (which is out of print) and Reluctant Gravities. May I gush? Waldrop has me rethinking my approach to the prose poem. I have half the book flagged and will be placing it in a place of honour in my bedside reading stack…unless Wilcke fights me for it.

[H]

Lifechanging.

[Sophia Haralambis]

close to perfection

[Jeremy Boyd]

A book I can appreciate so much because of its ability to lose its subject in the length of a sentence but without abandoning sensibility for lyric.

[Kevin Holden]

A really wonderful book. Strong philosophical thinking & true beauty of syntax & image. Very smart & actually rather soothing...

[Christine]

holy shit, it's like lydia davis but also it's better

[H]

The empty center inside of ourselves matched by “the empty space I place at the center of each poem to allow penetration” (49)— is our empty center what allows the world to funnel in?

“The body, jubilant to meet its double, bites into the apple” (181).

“I carry photos of my absent loves but don’t set a place for them at the table” (178).

“Moment of transfiguration, sublime and pitiful. The mind suffering sunstroke, overcome by its own light just when it thinks it’s defeating darkness” (162).

“I spread more like a puddle, my body relaxing away from me, no matter how firmly I decline its offers of expansion” (158).

“The way my sensations seem to belong to a me that has always already sided with the world” (110).

“My body slopes toward yours no matter how level the ground” (109).

“Poetry: an alternate, less linear logic” (97).

[Marije de Wit]

‘I put a ruler in my handbag, having heard men talk about their sex. Now we have correct measurement and a stickiness between collar and neck. It is one thing to insert yourself into a mirror, but quite another to get your image out again and have your errors pass for objectivity.’

‘My now begins six billion years ago, when fish stretched their fins onto dry land, or forty, with breasts and monthly bleeding.’

‘The pact between page and voice is different from the compact of voice and body. The voice opens the body. Air, the cold of the air, passes through and, with a single inflection, builds large castles. The paper wants proof, but bonds. The body cannot keep the voice. It spills the Foliage over the palisade.’

[Tom Thompson]

Rosmarie Waldrop's one of our greatest poets of seeing the world as we experience it—through want and form and fear and loss: "As a hawk describes circles whose inner emptiness bespeaks the power of gravity, where the lever catches on the cog of the world." This is one of my favorite books of hers. It is very dear to me.

[Tania Bies]

do we really understand anything? logically, in a percentage, unknowingly, you seem to understand everything she says. she is great at making connections almost unnoticeable.. these poems are both fun and riddle-like, showing how limitless language can be.. x

[Gabriel Bugarin]

Rosmarie Waldrop is new to me, but quickly became one of my favorite poets.