Position Paper

by Carol Snow

Poetry. In POSITION PAPER, Carol Snow's project of noting the world in relation comes fully assembled. This New and Selected Poems gathers work from Artist and Model , "a first book of singular poetic intelligence and attention" (Michael Palmer), to what Brian Teare called the "compassionately witty" karesansui—collages citing Bashö, Sappho, Picasso, Groucho—to new work in elegy to the poet's sister consolidating a startling range of means. The art of Henri Matisse, touchstone of invention and "attention or gratitude, not madness," is one motif attending this collection; the stone and sand arrangement of the Zen garden at Ryoan-ji another; not to mention the 70 prepositions the poet memorized in Junior High School. Snow's work has been praised as "brilliant, funny, subtle" (Robert Hass), "delicate, masterful" (Cole Swenson), and "a new and mesmerizing way of looking at things" (Fanny Howe). Stones, art, family, elegy, error, perception, prepositions, permutations, "likening ... like an only hope or home." The whole, a kind of suite.

200 pages, Paperback

Published May 16, 2016

About the author

Called “an author to watch” by Booklist, Carol Snow is an American author of contemporary women’s fiction and young adult literature. After graduating from Brown University with a degree in psychology, she spent many years writing literary short stories before accepting that she couldn't go more than a few hundred words without cracking a joke. She eventually turned her attention to crafting humorous, heartfelt stories with a wider commercial appeal, and In 2006, Berkley/Penguin published her first novel, Been There, Done That, which Publisher's Weekly called “humorous, wise . . . romance with a bit of social commentary.” Since then, she has written four more books for adults, Getting Warmer (2007), Here Today, Gone to Maui (2009), Just Like Me, Only Better (2010), and the upcoming What Came First (2011), about which Laura Fitzgerald, bestselling author of Veil of Roses, said, “Carol Snow mixes her trademark humor with tenderness and understanding in this good-mom/bad-mom tale of unexpected twists and turns.” Carol has also written two young adult books for HarperCollins, Switch (2008), an ALA Quick Pick for Reluctant Readers, and Snap (2009). Foreign rights to her books have sold to publishers in Germany, Norway, and Romania.

Carol Snow grew up in New Jersey. Much of her childhood was spent immersed in books; the rest was focused on avoiding dodgeball. In addition to her psychology degree from Brown University, she holds an M.A.T. in English from Boston College. Before getting her first book published, she had the typical (for a writer) assortment of odd jobs: tour guide, tutor, chambermaid, waitress. She worked for a T-shirt company, a child services agency, and a vanity press. She even had a short stint in local politics. Her campaign brochures were really pretty, with flawless punctuation.

Since leaving New Jersey, Carol has lived all over the place: Rhode Island, London, Massachusetts, New York, Connecticut, Utah, Arizona, and, now, Southern California, where she shares a cat-fur-coated house with her husband and their two children.