Objects from a Borrowed Confession

by Julie Carr

Poetry. Women's Studies. With OBJECTS FROM A BORROWED CONFESSION, poet Julie Carr has undertaken an expansive reexamination, amassing a project written over the last ten years that approaches the subject of confession from within the confession itself. Carr neither mounts an apology on behalf of confessional poets (there is no apology necessary), nor does she offer readers a straightforward critical appraisal of confession in writing itself. Rather, the poet approaches her topic as a theme worthy of consideration, offering fresh insight to what it is about the confessional text that can provide catharsis for one reader just as easily as make another uncomfortable. A one-sided epistolary novella whose speaker writes to an ex-lover's ex-lover begins this volume, and Carr charges these unanswered, unanswerable letters with inquiries that permeate the How do we understand grief, obsession, the very nature of forgiveness? Why confess? Whom does my confession benefit? For whom do I intend it? Carr's lyrical prose guides the reader through these questions as each relates to one's perspective, navigating the relationships these texts arise from, or give rise to, by way of inhabiting shared spaces and experiences—not simply stepping into a different persona with each shift in genre. The poet's dexterous handling of these shifts between essay, epistolary, poem, and memoir, allows each movement within the book its own unique melodies, which, taken in whole, create intoxicating harmonies for the attentive listener. The result is a book emotionally complex and intellectually thrilling, brimming with crystalline prose and formal expertise from one of contemporary poetry's most distinct voices.

"OBJECTS FROM A BORROWED CONFESSION vibrate/s with analyrical fervor, situated intimacy shared, a profound anti-generic communicability running over every edge, terribly beautifully trying to get at something. Having been given an all-but-impossible range of revelation, Julie Carr offers careful and intense imperatives for telling sung strained, estranged, touchingly, with an absolute precision of touch, hands laid on what she hands, all up in all she gives, having put her foot in it, too, dancing words with absolute flavor, preparing a table for pleasure and necessity improvised in contact, turning toward everything in turning toward you."—Fred Moten

Genres: Poetry, LGBT

160 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2016

Reviews

[Vincent Scarpa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Like holy communion, this book.

“And I, in thinking, in remembering, am I making you?” (“What do we want to know and how far are we willing to go to get it?”)

“How far from some images I want to camp. But if language matters more, then how does this language move? It moves away. So what kind of worship is this? (“Objects from a Borrowed Confession”)

“Confessing, does one ask to be forgiven? Or instead, to be recognized, even, one could say, made, made something rather than remaining (alone and) nothing?—Confessing do we admit to a failure or a desire?” (“The War Reporter: On Confession”)

“Moods might be transpersonal but then writing might occlude one mood while pretending to offer another just as the sea presents a wave over and atop the one that only seconds before was prominently displayed as its best forward effort and each breath overtakes the last until panting and flushed I forgive myself these compromises for there is no other way.” (“Destroyed Works or, Expanded Cinema”)

“Once, having been ‘tossed aside,’ I resorted to payphones, to multiple calls from a seaside town throughout one whole wet spring day, leaving messages of increasing panic; but just as rain can’t fill the ocean because the ocean is already full, no particular event of ‘not having’ can increase one’s envy store. One way to sooth envy is to draw pictures of horses. Another is to answer a kid calling you from bed.” (“Envy”)

“Without turning around she said, having your heart broken is just like falling in love. In both instances something breaks and you’re in the world more fully. It almost doesn’t matter, she said, whether you’ve just fallen in love or just had your heart broken. Either way, split, you’re alive.” (“That’s not me: an afterthought”)

[Woody · Rating 5 out of 5]

"On a typical day in the united states / people would send each other text messages // like what chemicals are in ur body / today In the united states // u could always say sexualize my crisis / in the right poem"

this book is dope

[Kayleb Candrilli · Rating 5 out of 5]

A total stunner of a book through and through. & "The world is flat" is just an astonishingly good long poem. 100% recommend.

[Stuart Ross · Rating 5 out of 5]

"There is no harm in speaking of the past, for the past does not exist, is less than the light that falls toward my face. The future, however, is a red fox, running right past me, headed for the dark hole where it lives. Or else it's like the flush in Emma Bovary's cheeks: fleeting, alluring, and unsure of its cause."