What do you think?
Rate this book
From Sweetness
A prize winning poetry collection, selected by Dorianne Laux for the 2000 Pearl Poetry Prize.
- GenresPoetry
96 pages, Paperback
First published December 1, 2001
About the author
Debra Marquart
17 books26 followersDebra Marquart is a professor of English at Iowa State University. She teaches in the MFA Program in Creative Writing & Environment at Iowa State University and the Stonecoast Low-Residency MFA program at the University of Southern Maine. Marquart's work has appeared in numerous journals such as The North American Review, Three Penny Review, New Letters, River City, Crab Orchard Review, Cumberland Poetry Review, The Sun Magazine, Southern Poetry Review, Orion, Mid-American Review and Witness.
In the seventies and eighties, Marquart was a touring road musician with rock and heavy metal bands. Her collection of short stories, The Hunger Bone: Rock & Roll Stories draws from her experiences as a female road musician. Marquart continues to perform with a jazz-poetry rhythm & blues project, The Bone People, with whom she has released two CDs: Orange Parade (acoustic rock), and A Regular Dervish (jazz-poetry).
Marquart's work has received numerous awards and commendations, including the John Guyon Nonfiction Award (Crab Orchard Review), the Mid-American Review Nonfiction Award, The Headwater's Prize from New Rivers Press, the Minnesota Voices Award, the Pearl Poetry Award (Pearl Editions), the Shelby Foote Prize for the Essay from the Faulkner Society, a Pushcart Prize, and a 2008 NEA Creative Writing Fellowship.
A performance poet, Marquart is the author of two poetry collections: Everything's a Verb and From Sweetness. Her memoir, The Horizontal World: Growing Up Wild in the Middle of Nowhere, was published by Counterpoint Books in 2006. It received the "Elle Lettres" award from Elle Magazine and the 2007 PEN USA Creative Nonfiction Award. Marquart is currently at work on a novel, set in Greece, titled The Olive Harvest, and a roots memoir about emigration, geographical flight, and cultural amnesia titled Somewhere Else this Time Tomorrow.
In the seventies and eighties, Marquart was a touring road musician with rock and heavy metal bands. Her collection of short stories, The Hunger Bone: Rock & Roll Stories draws from her experiences as a female road musician. Marquart continues to perform with a jazz-poetry rhythm & blues project, The Bone People, with whom she has released two CDs: Orange Parade (acoustic rock), and A Regular Dervish (jazz-poetry).
Marquart's work has received numerous awards and commendations, including the John Guyon Nonfiction Award (Crab Orchard Review), the Mid-American Review Nonfiction Award, The Headwater's Prize from New Rivers Press, the Minnesota Voices Award, the Pearl Poetry Award (Pearl Editions), the Shelby Foote Prize for the Essay from the Faulkner Society, a Pushcart Prize, and a 2008 NEA Creative Writing Fellowship.
A performance poet, Marquart is the author of two poetry collections: Everything's a Verb and From Sweetness. Her memoir, The Horizontal World: Growing Up Wild in the Middle of Nowhere, was published by Counterpoint Books in 2006. It received the "Elle Lettres" award from Elle Magazine and the 2007 PEN USA Creative Nonfiction Award. Marquart is currently at work on a novel, set in Greece, titled The Olive Harvest, and a roots memoir about emigration, geographical flight, and cultural amnesia titled Somewhere Else this Time Tomorrow.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
July 14, 2026
"How long have we held
our breath, swimming deep strokes
to meet in these murky waters, how long
have we heard this music, soft and dark
as the inside of a womb. You say
you're from a large southern city,
but I have other knowledge."
- other knowledge
"From the street, the creak
of a carriage, horses’ hooves on cobblestone,
that old, old poetry. The wind blows tones
tonight, a saxophone, on the boardwalk,
breathing in, breathing out, the blue smoke
of a song I know but can’t recall.
Soon I must return
to my small river, go down to the shore
and beat my clothes against the hardness,
open my throat and try to make a song
from the long ago row of notes."
- on Lake Superior
"(...) all the rainy mornings,
and dusty libraries of childhood."
- envy of origins
"I saw in a movie—two kids sitting
in a rowboat in the middle
of an enchanted lake
as rainbow-skinned trout leap
in wide arcs into their arms.
Why do we settle, each year,
for tin cans and bottom feeders,
for poems like old boots,
their drunk tongues refusing
to speak. Listen, something
waits for us. The lake turns
to river turns to sea. Careful now,
easy with the line. Easy.
Ah man, she’s a beauty."
- fish while you can
"He
was always going to California,
but first the dirty dance halls,
then the pregnant wife.
(...)
When I met him, I had a habit
of quitting smoking for twenty
minutes, and he would vow
to leave his wife. In that room
where they found him,
I imagine a woman slipping
out from under and collecting
her clothes. She slides
the chain free and runs down
the hallway, falling apart
as she runs, falling apart as she runs
away from Keith and the way
he knew how to play."
- do drop inn
"It is possible
to create a life, doors opening to other
doors, the fresh breeze of tomorrow
rushing in to make the world new
each day.
(...)
The fingerprints
of the dead are everywhere, the tiny
whorls like plots to cities where one
could spend a life. Best to find
your own path, chart the roadmap
etched under your skin, sit down,
get to know the wantings of your feet."
- palimpsest
our breath, swimming deep strokes
to meet in these murky waters, how long
have we heard this music, soft and dark
as the inside of a womb. You say
you're from a large southern city,
but I have other knowledge."
- other knowledge
"From the street, the creak
of a carriage, horses’ hooves on cobblestone,
that old, old poetry. The wind blows tones
tonight, a saxophone, on the boardwalk,
breathing in, breathing out, the blue smoke
of a song I know but can’t recall.
Soon I must return
to my small river, go down to the shore
and beat my clothes against the hardness,
open my throat and try to make a song
from the long ago row of notes."
- on Lake Superior
"(...) all the rainy mornings,
and dusty libraries of childhood."
- envy of origins
"I saw in a movie—two kids sitting
in a rowboat in the middle
of an enchanted lake
as rainbow-skinned trout leap
in wide arcs into their arms.
Why do we settle, each year,
for tin cans and bottom feeders,
for poems like old boots,
their drunk tongues refusing
to speak. Listen, something
waits for us. The lake turns
to river turns to sea. Careful now,
easy with the line. Easy.
Ah man, she’s a beauty."
- fish while you can
"He
was always going to California,
but first the dirty dance halls,
then the pregnant wife.
(...)
When I met him, I had a habit
of quitting smoking for twenty
minutes, and he would vow
to leave his wife. In that room
where they found him,
I imagine a woman slipping
out from under and collecting
her clothes. She slides
the chain free and runs down
the hallway, falling apart
as she runs, falling apart as she runs
away from Keith and the way
he knew how to play."
- do drop inn
"It is possible
to create a life, doors opening to other
doors, the fresh breeze of tomorrow
rushing in to make the world new
each day.
(...)
The fingerprints
of the dead are everywhere, the tiny
whorls like plots to cities where one
could spend a life. Best to find
your own path, chart the roadmap
etched under your skin, sit down,
get to know the wantings of your feet."
- palimpsest
July 2, 2016
These poems are perfectly crafted, beautiful really, but I couldn't like them. They're simply boring to me. I can appreciate them as art, but I had no desire to keep reading.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews