Everytime a Knot is Undone, a God is Released: Collected and New Poems 1974-2011

by Barbara Chase-Riboud

The long breath of Barbara Chase-Riboud's poems recalls poets of the antique world we know only from fragments, like Sappho. And yet here is a disquieting and sumptuous contemporary voice that seems to gather up antiquity and modernity with equal fervor and scorn. These poems are sexually charged, possessed of a courtly disdain and a strange nobility that seems to well up from below to be self-creating and unlike the verse of any other poet writing today.

Certainly one secret to this work is that Chase-Riboud's poems are informed by her epic, polished bronze sculptures, as her sculptures are informed by her narrative fiction, and her fiction by her poems. The idea of the Renaissance Man is almost a cliché, but how often do we get to see what it means for an artist to be a Renaissance Woman? Chase-Riboud has been a major in sculpture, fiction, and poetry for close to half a selling over a million copies of her path-breaking novel  Sally Hemings  in the late '70s, winning the Carl Sandburg Award for her second collection of poems in the late '80s, and now, nearly thirty years later, on the heels of a major retrospective of her sculpture at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Berkeley Art Museum, here is  Everytime a Knot is Undone, a God is Released , her first new and collected volume of verse.

Genres: Poetry

400 pages, Hardcover

First published October 14, 2014

About the author

An American novelist, poet, sculptor and visual artist, perhaps best known for her historical fiction. Much of her work has explored themes related to slavery and exploitation of women.

Chase-Riboud attained international recognition with the publication of her first novel, Sally Hemings, in 1979. The novel has been described as the "first full blown imagining" of Hemings' life as a slave and her relationship with Jefferson.[1] In addition to stimulating considerable controversy, the book earned Chase-Riboud the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize for the best novel written by an American woman and sold more than one million copies in hardcover.[2] She has received numerous honors for her work, including the Carl Sandburg Prize for poetry and the Women's Caucus for Art's lifetime achievement award.[1] In 1965, she became the first American woman to visit the People's Republic of China after the revolution.[3] In 1996, she was knighted by the French Government and received the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.[4] She divides her time between Paris and Rome.

The only child of Vivian May Chase, a histology technician and Charles Edward Chase, a contractor.[5] Chase-Riboud displayed an early talent for the arts and began attending the Fleisher Art Memorial School at the age of 8. She also excelled as an art student at the Philadelphia High School for Girls (now combined with Central High School). Between 1947 and 1954, she continued her training at the Philadelphia Museum School of Art and won an award from Seventeen for one of her prints, which was subsequently purchased by the Museum of Modern Art.[5] Chase-Riboud went on to receive a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Tyler School at Temple University in 1957. In that same year, she won a John Hay Whitney fellowship to study at the American Academy in Rome for 12 months. There, she created her first bronze sculptures and exhibited her work at the Spoleto Festival in 1957, as well as at the American Academy and the Gallery L'Obeliso the following year.[6] During this time, she traveled to Egypt, where she discovered non-European art.[6] In 1960, Chase-Riboud completed a Master of Fine Arts from Yale University.

After completing her studies, Chase-Riboud moved to Paris.

Reviews

[GP · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of the things I love about poetry is the ability it has to craft startlingly vivid imagery within the confines of the poetic structure. Well done poetry is sharp, with a clarity of vision using words. After reading from Everytime a Knot is Undone, it struck me that Barbara Chase-Riboud was doing something very different from modern poetry. Instead of creating the brief word pictures of modern works, this was instead the sort of craftwork of a logos edifice. It felt more akin to the long form epic poems of history. This is a great work. It transcends short illusions, with a conversation between the two lovers who play out their passions to the inevitable ends and the Plutarch; our chorus who closes the curtain for each act. It's an intriguing book, misleadingly slight in pages, but hefty words to feed your soul. Take your time through this one, it's worth it.

[Melissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I will continue to be reading and thinking about these powerful poems. I want to sit with them like Zen koans. I am sort of surprised I've never heard of her, and I think I will be reading more of her work.

[Liam Miles · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5

[☾ Janelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Everyone needs to read some poetry once in awhile! I may have gotten real emotional when i read some pieces.