Hum

by Ann Lauterbach

From Hum:Things are incidentalSomeone is weeping

I weep for the incidentalThe days are beautiful

Tomorrow was yesterdayThe days are beautiful

Since the mid-1970s, Ann Lauterbach has explored the ways in which language simultaneously captures and forfeits our experience. In Hum, her seventh collection of poetry, loss and the unexpected (the title poem was written directly in response to witnessing the events of 9/11) play against the reassurances of repetition and narrative story. By turns elegant, fierce, and sensuous, her musically charged poems move from the pictorial or imagistic to a heightened sense of the aural or musical in order to depict the world humming with vibrations of every kind from every source—the world as a form of life.

Genres: Poetry

123 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 5, 2005

About the author

Born and raised in New York City, Ann Lauterbach studied at the University of Wisconsin, Madison and Columbia University. Before completing her M.A. in English. she moved to London to work in publishing and art galleries. Upon her return to New York, she continued working in art galleries for a number of years. Lauterbach then began teaching writing and literature.

She is the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the New York State Foundation for the Arts, the Ingram Merrill Foundation, and in 1995, she was awarded the prestigious MacArthur Fellowship. Lauterbach has taught at Brooklyn College, Columbia, Iowa, Princeton, and at the City College of New York and the CUNY Graduate Center. She is currently Schwab Professor of Languages and Literature at Bard College, where she has also been, since 1991, co-chair of writing in the Milton Avery School of the Arts. She is also a visiting core critic at the Yale Graduate School of the Arts.

Reviews

[Margaryta · Rating 3 out of 5]

Though admittedly confusing at times to the point of going over the head, there is something consistent in Lauterbach's words, a kind of tempo she carries through the collection. "Impossible Blue" and "God" were my personal favourites. It's essential to have one's understanding of language and the simple arrangement of words to be periodically challenged, and Lauterbach does this perfectly.

[Cameron · Rating 5 out of 5]

A jacket, a cup