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Alibi Lullaby
A collection of poems that embrace musicality and locate the patterns of ancient songs in the body, nature, and world events.
Alibi, in Latin, meant “elsewhere,” and “lullaby”—from lull, to soothe, and bye, near, close by—has elements linguistic elements that appear across cultures. Music, from ancient songs recorded on tables to contemporary compositions, share related framing elements that have persisted across formal patterns and rhythms, peaceful and hypnotic movements, and elements of terror arising from the moving frontier of “thrill, dread, certainty.”
In this collection, Norma Cole considers the ancient and transcendent patterns of music, finding them through nature, heart sounds, the spectral elegance of blood flow, the murmur of melody, and many diverse patterns and beats. Sounds of summer, massacres, “empathy through distress,” unknowing, energy, suspense, and fragility echo throughout the poems and other writings. Drawing on a poetics that embraces formal freefall and looks forward while holding up the shifting mirror of memory, Alibi Lullaby is a lyrical montage at the edges of musicality.
Alibi, in Latin, meant “elsewhere,” and “lullaby”—from lull, to soothe, and bye, near, close by—has elements linguistic elements that appear across cultures. Music, from ancient songs recorded on tables to contemporary compositions, share related framing elements that have persisted across formal patterns and rhythms, peaceful and hypnotic movements, and elements of terror arising from the moving frontier of “thrill, dread, certainty.”
In this collection, Norma Cole considers the ancient and transcendent patterns of music, finding them through nature, heart sounds, the spectral elegance of blood flow, the murmur of melody, and many diverse patterns and beats. Sounds of summer, massacres, “empathy through distress,” unknowing, energy, suspense, and fragility echo throughout the poems and other writings. Drawing on a poetics that embraces formal freefall and looks forward while holding up the shifting mirror of memory, Alibi Lullaby is a lyrical montage at the edges of musicality.
92 pages, Kindle Edition
Published May 22, 2025
6 people want to read
About the author
Norma Cole
52 books15 followersNorma Cole is a poet, painter, and translator. Her most recent books of poetry include Fate News, Actualities, Where Shadows Will, and Win These Posters and Other Unrelated Prizes Inside. Her translations from French include Danielle Collobert’s It Then, the anthology Crosscut Universe: Writing on Writing from France, and Jean Daive’s White Decimal. Cole lives and works in San Francisco.
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