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Cease
A Plea and an Awakening to Peace as a Process and a Transient State
CEASE begins with the words, “to keep the peace/we need a wall/to fall to our knees before….” Framed by the long poem, “wall,” Beth Bachmann’s new collection of poetry wildly upturns the boundaries between bodies at peace and bodies at war, between the human territory of border walls and the effects of war on the environment and landscape, between the movements of soldiers and of refugees, between terror as an interior state and violences performed on the body, and between the words of politicians and the breath of a poem. Taking up Muriel Rukeyser’s call for women poets to respond to war, “Women and poets see the truth arrive,” the poems in CEASE are almost breathless in their speed and presence on the page. CEASE is both a plea and an awakening to peace as a process and a transient state.
CEASE begins with the words, “to keep the peace/we need a wall/to fall to our knees before….” Framed by the long poem, “wall,” Beth Bachmann’s new collection of poetry wildly upturns the boundaries between bodies at peace and bodies at war, between the human territory of border walls and the effects of war on the environment and landscape, between the movements of soldiers and of refugees, between terror as an interior state and violences performed on the body, and between the words of politicians and the breath of a poem. Taking up Muriel Rukeyser’s call for women poets to respond to war, “Women and poets see the truth arrive,” the poems in CEASE are almost breathless in their speed and presence on the page. CEASE is both a plea and an awakening to peace as a process and a transient state.
- GenresPoetry
200 pages, Paperback
First published September 18, 2018
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18 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
December 3, 2021
New poetic unit: 'the space.' Not 'the break', the single space. The measurement between words. It's a unit of fixed equality. All spaces are the same. In Bachmann's measurement, the space is the only necessity, perhaps as the wall is the architecture needed to "keep the peace."
By rendering these poems through an equidistance of space, they unfold in obviously unpredictable fashion. Words are linked and unlinked, bound only by the tether of one's personal reading. Sure, there are lines that may clue you to a more obvious reading but more often than not, the thought is upended, ruptured and reconfigured midway through.
The poems seemingly refuse to cease. There are endings but no clear stops. There is light, blood, war, god, and the devil—subjects and objects that are unceasing in their constant shifting in personal and cultural consciousness. Bachmann is so clearly dialed in here, reinventing and the refusing all in the same breath.
By rendering these poems through an equidistance of space, they unfold in obviously unpredictable fashion. Words are linked and unlinked, bound only by the tether of one's personal reading. Sure, there are lines that may clue you to a more obvious reading but more often than not, the thought is upended, ruptured and reconfigured midway through.
The poems seemingly refuse to cease. There are endings but no clear stops. There is light, blood, war, god, and the devil—subjects and objects that are unceasing in their constant shifting in personal and cultural consciousness. Bachmann is so clearly dialed in here, reinventing and the refusing all in the same breath.
March 16, 2024
I’m formulating thoughts for a graduate class book review of CEASE. I’ve never read anything like it. I think I enjoyed the challenge of placing the pauses in the correct space or not. I enjoyed the word play of the titles and the layout of them. I’m not sure what war we are talking about yet since the copyright of my copy is 2018. But there is the theme of the wall and also:
love and the theme of the war and peace and I feel a little embarrassed after reading a book like this because I don’t know what was happening to the author but memories were stirred up of breakups and sex and honestly I was amazed by the prophetic line of the quarantined ship on page 54
love and the theme of the war and peace and I feel a little embarrassed after reading a book like this because I don’t know what was happening to the author but memories were stirred up of breakups and sex and honestly I was amazed by the prophetic line of the quarantined ship on page 54
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews