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Depth Perception: Poems and a Masque
This fourth book of poems from award-winning author Robin Morgan has an almost-novelistic shape, with plot twists that are realizations of self, other, and the nature of change
In this book of transitions, Robin Morgan’s poetry crosses the boundaries of age, race, culture, and gender. The lifelong love-hate passion between mother and daughter is here, as is a vivid, rhetoric-free depiction of the suffering and rage of women cross-culturally. Morgan also traces the slow dissolution of a marriage, parsed in poems of alternating hope and despair, humor and fury—and also in a tragicomic, two-character, one-act verse play, “The Duel: A Masque.” The play, which inverts the Orpheus-Eurydice myth, was performed at the Public Theater in New York City.
Praised by the literary world for her technique, but dedicated to keeping her craft accessible and impassioned, Morgan takes us through inevitable deaths and resurrections of the self in pitch-perfect language shot through with dazzling imagery and irony.
In this book of transitions, Robin Morgan’s poetry crosses the boundaries of age, race, culture, and gender. The lifelong love-hate passion between mother and daughter is here, as is a vivid, rhetoric-free depiction of the suffering and rage of women cross-culturally. Morgan also traces the slow dissolution of a marriage, parsed in poems of alternating hope and despair, humor and fury—and also in a tragicomic, two-character, one-act verse play, “The Duel: A Masque.” The play, which inverts the Orpheus-Eurydice myth, was performed at the Public Theater in New York City.
Praised by the literary world for her technique, but dedicated to keeping her craft accessible and impassioned, Morgan takes us through inevitable deaths and resurrections of the self in pitch-perfect language shot through with dazzling imagery and irony.
177 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1982
9 people want to read
About the author
Robin Morgan
130 books108 followersAn award-winning poet, novelist, political theorist, feminist activist, journalist, editor, and best-selling author, Robin Morgan has published 20 books, including the now-classic anthologies
Sisterhood Is Powerful
(Random House, 1970) and
Sisterhood Is Global
(Doubleday, l984; updated edition, The Feminist Press, 1996); with the recent
Sisterhood Is Forever
(Washington Square Press, 2003). A leader in contemporary US feminism, she has also played an influential role internationally in the women’s movement for more than 25 years.
An invited speaker at every major university in North America, Morgan has traveled — as organizer, lecturer, journalist — across Europe, to Australia, Brazil, the Caribbean, Central America, China, Indonesia, Israel, Japan, Nepal, New Zealand, Pacific Island nations, the Philippines, and South Africa; she has twice (1986 and 1989) spent months in the Palestinian refugee camps in Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Syria, West Bank, and Gaza, reporting on the conditions of women.
Her books include the novels Dry Your Smile (Doubleday, l987) and The Mer-Child A Legend for Children and Other Adults (Feminist Press, 1991); nonfiction Going Too Far (Random House, 1977), The Word of a Woman (Norton, 1992, 2nd ed. 1994), and The Anatomy of Freedom (Norton, 1994). Her work has been translated into 13 languages, including Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Persian, Russian, and Sanskrit. Recent books include the poetry anthologies Upstairs in the Garden (1994) and A Hot January (both Norton), as well as the memoir Saturday's Child (Norton, 2000), and her best-selling nonfiction piece The Demon Lover - The Roots of Terrorism (Norton, 1989—2nd ed. with a new introduction and afterword (Washington Square Press, 2001). Her novel on the Inquisition — The Burning Time — was published in 2006 (Melville House), and Fighting Words A Toolkit for Combating the Religious Right in 2006 (Nation Books).
As founder and president of The Sisterhood Is Global Institute and co-founder and board member of The Women’s Media Center, she has co-founded and serves on the boards of many women’s organizations in the US and abroad. In 1990, as editor-in-chief of Ms. magazine, she relaunched the magazine as an international, award-winning, ad-free bimonthly, resigning in late 1993 to become consulting global editor. A recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts Prize for poetry, and numerous other honors, she lives in New York City.
An invited speaker at every major university in North America, Morgan has traveled — as organizer, lecturer, journalist — across Europe, to Australia, Brazil, the Caribbean, Central America, China, Indonesia, Israel, Japan, Nepal, New Zealand, Pacific Island nations, the Philippines, and South Africa; she has twice (1986 and 1989) spent months in the Palestinian refugee camps in Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Syria, West Bank, and Gaza, reporting on the conditions of women.
Her books include the novels Dry Your Smile (Doubleday, l987) and The Mer-Child A Legend for Children and Other Adults (Feminist Press, 1991); nonfiction Going Too Far (Random House, 1977), The Word of a Woman (Norton, 1992, 2nd ed. 1994), and The Anatomy of Freedom (Norton, 1994). Her work has been translated into 13 languages, including Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Persian, Russian, and Sanskrit. Recent books include the poetry anthologies Upstairs in the Garden (1994) and A Hot January (both Norton), as well as the memoir Saturday's Child (Norton, 2000), and her best-selling nonfiction piece The Demon Lover - The Roots of Terrorism (Norton, 1989—2nd ed. with a new introduction and afterword (Washington Square Press, 2001). Her novel on the Inquisition — The Burning Time — was published in 2006 (Melville House), and Fighting Words A Toolkit for Combating the Religious Right in 2006 (Nation Books).
As founder and president of The Sisterhood Is Global Institute and co-founder and board member of The Women’s Media Center, she has co-founded and serves on the boards of many women’s organizations in the US and abroad. In 1990, as editor-in-chief of Ms. magazine, she relaunched the magazine as an international, award-winning, ad-free bimonthly, resigning in late 1993 to become consulting global editor. A recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts Prize for poetry, and numerous other honors, she lives in New York City.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
October 10, 2015
Disclaimer: This book was given to me for free via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
I really enjoyed this. I need to find the non e-book version, because reading poetry on an e-reader doesn't do it for me. The formatting was decent on this one, but I just love holding the actual poetry book. Reading it in dead tree form is part of the experience. This has nothing to do with the book, just something I have noticed after reading a few poetry ebooks. Is it just me?
I really enjoyed this. I need to find the non e-book version, because reading poetry on an e-reader doesn't do it for me. The formatting was decent on this one, but I just love holding the actual poetry book. Reading it in dead tree form is part of the experience. This has nothing to do with the book, just something I have noticed after reading a few poetry ebooks. Is it just me?
Displaying 1 of 1 review