Door

by Ann Lauterbach

Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2023 by LitHub

A new collection of vivid, personal and provocative work from the author of Or to Begin Again, a finalist for the 2009 National Book Award in poetry

In Ann Lauterbach's eleventh collection, the image of a Door recurs across several poems, as she considers the perpetual dialogue between what is open and what is shut for each of us. The Door is a threshold between the inner landscape of memory, thought, imagination and dream and the outer so-called real world, which increasingly comes to us through technology's lens, displacing and distorting our sense of intimacy, presence and relation. What is near, and what is far away? She asks about the efficacy of language itself, when confronted by the urgent uncertainties of contemporary experience.

Genres: Poetry

112 pages, Paperback

First published March 7, 2023

About the author

Born and raised in New York City, Ann Lauterbach studied at the University of Wisconsin, Madison and Columbia University. Before completing her M.A. in English. she moved to London to work in publishing and art galleries. Upon her return to New York, she continued working in art galleries for a number of years. Lauterbach then began teaching writing and literature.

She is the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the New York State Foundation for the Arts, the Ingram Merrill Foundation, and in 1995, she was awarded the prestigious MacArthur Fellowship. Lauterbach has taught at Brooklyn College, Columbia, Iowa, Princeton, and at the City College of New York and the CUNY Graduate Center. She is currently Schwab Professor of Languages and Literature at Bard College, where she has also been, since 1991, co-chair of writing in the Milton Avery School of the Arts. She is also a visiting core critic at the Yale Graduate School of the Arts.

Reviews

[Luke Gorham · Rating 2 out of 5]

Probably just time to admit my taste in poetry and Lauterbach's style are about as incompatible as sandpaper and hemorrhoids.

[Patricia N. McLaughlin · Rating 3 out of 5]

In response to this collection, a found poem of erasure from “Ovation for Now”:

“Reckless coinage, random access
crammed into the associated hinge of cognition
the dead-end pen
writing a note to follow the exchange
and the apparition culled from voices
argued as an arrangement with truth
and episodic as the wild of love
naked versions, fit one into the other.”

With lots of doors, open and shut.

Favorite Poems:
“Ingredients”
“Ovation for Now”
“Door” I
“An Interior”
“Door” II
“Dis”
“On Relation”
“Hearsay”
“The Blue Door”

[Penn Kemp · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Door is a liminal threshold, entrance and exit, in these transformational narratives.

“Simone Weil talks about attention.
To what should we attend?
Attention is a form of response, not just
perception. If you attend, you respond;
otherwise you are in an aesthetic morality,
pleased with yourself for seeing. We see and
we say, but what do we do?”

“Is writing a way of stalling for time,
to delay the tasks in the next room”
“Clarity is not the same
as the literal.”

[Adair Deurmire · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn't understand most of this, which makes me paranoid about my brain but also a lot of it is just a string of words that mean things individually, but together without punctuation make absolutely zero sense. I also refuse to read poems that feature the words tik tok or emoji. that being said, I think these poems are probably just fine if you understand them and Im tempted to write the author an email about it

[Jessi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Is writing a way of stalling for time,
to delay the tasks in the next room,
dishes and clothes, books and papers,
the pile of shoes on the floor, the floor,
the rugs, the drawer
chaotic with nails and hooks and small tools?
Poem is too busy to answer.

— “The Blue Door”

[Simón · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the way the door kept popping up.

[Paul Gabriel · Rating 5 out of 5]

#
Please conduct me to a place
where there are no calibrations and no outcomes.


#
Nothing is going to get me closer because I don’t trust you to be on the other side.

[Ashley : bostieslovebooks]

(Sealey Challenge Day 18)

[Jillian · Rating 2 out of 5]

Maybe the fault lies with me, but I found this collection of poetry to be a bit haughty and pretentious. There wasn’t much gripping me, personally.