Micrographia

by Emily Wilson

Eight years after her revelatory first book, Emily Wilson deepens her focus and extends her vision in new poems of striking intelligence and originality. Venturing into landscapes both interior and exterior, Micrographia explores what Wilson calls “the complex rigged wildness” of geographical, emotional, and verbal states, a territory located “somewhere in that / enjambment within / a cave within the brain.” Following in the tradition of such poets as Dickinson, Bishop, and Ammons, Wilson’s work regards the mind as “enmeshed” with the natural world, always “at the hinge of going over.” Her way of speaking is as precisely calibrated and as restless as her way of seeing, and the terrain of Micrographia rises from a rich and unpredictable encounter with poetic language and form. At the same time, the voice of these poems is never less than urgent, “coming clear by the foment / moving through it.” Wilson’s eye travels the troubled boundaries between visible and invisible worlds, ranging from coastal Nova Scotia to the Andean highlands to Brooklyn’s industrial Gowanus Canal to the poet’s own backyard. Steeped in tradition but spoken in tones that are utterly distinctive, these intricate poems enter into the microscopic, micrographic spaces between words and things, between thinking and being.

Genres: Poetry

62 pages, Paperback

First published March 15, 2009

About the author

Emily Wilson (b. 1968) was born in Ohio and grew up in Maine; she was educated at Harvard University and the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Her collections of poetry include The Keep (2001); Morpho terrestre (2006), a limited-edition book with prints by Sara Langworthy; and Micrographia (2009). Poet James Galvin noted in the Boston Review that Wilson’s poetry matches “wildness of diction with precision of sense.”

Wilson has taught at Colby College, Grinnell College, the University of Montana, and the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop. She was the recipient of a 2007 fellowship from the National Endowment of the Arts.

Reviews

[Melissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The parts have no portion why not? / They cannot be counted why not? / They make the thing whole? / It grew at that slant."

[angela · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars.

I read this book because a mutual shared a google drive link on tumblr dot com. I actually don’t think the content of the book reflects the story of how it ended up in my hands but it reflects the pace. I will say indeed it’s a very microscopic view and tone of voice

[Danni · Rating 3 out of 5]

my professor has been comparing my poetry to Emily Wilson's for almost a year now, so I figured I'd finally read some of her stuff. gotta say, I don't really see the resemblance.

[Robert Beveridge · Rating 4 out of 5]

Emily Wilson, Micrographia (University of Iowa Press, 2009)

In 1665, Robert Hooke published Micrographia, or, Some Physical Descriptions of Minute Bodes Made by Magnifying Glasses, with Observations and Inquiries Thereupon. It was a revolutionary scientific text, one of the very first to describe the microscopic world. (Completely unrelated, it was also the first publication of the Royal Society, who have for centuries been Britain's premier publishers of scientific literature.) Emily Wilson didn't take up the science in her book Micrographia, but she obviously likes the idea of looking at things very closely. Each of the short poems in this sort volume hones in on something, examines it as closely as possible:

“it has not yet occurred upon the limb it has not determined to be spurlike
it is not yet done it lingers in the pattern of its advancement

are you long of this world I
am delivered into casting my bit among us

are you a being of more than one measure
ruffed so none can hold”
(“Coal Age”)

As well, Wilson has also internalized the patterns of microscopic life, using repetition in language the way organisms build with clusters of similar cells, and to much the same purpose. Emily Wilson's poetry is an organic thing, and a fine one. Paradoxically, my one problem with the collection is that I wanted more of it, though I know that such would probably destroy the balance. *** ½

[Rowan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I got Emily Wilson's books because I have a letterpressed broadside of hers, made by the inestimable Sara Langworthy, my former printing teacher at the University of Iowa Center for the Book. The poem on the broadside is "Small Study," and the language in it is so lush, so finely wrought, that I wanted to read more. She has two books, The Keep and Micrographia and though I've been reading The Keep (her first book) longer, I've found it much slower going.

Micrographia however was a faster read. I think it's because this collection isn't nearly as dense. The language is detailed and sonic, precise and at times obscure. It is carefully worked, and at times absolutely stunning. At times the language, the rich sonorous words, takes primacy, nearly obscuring the meaning that always lurks one step beyond it. The interplay of sense and sound is exquisite. But there feels like there's something a little lacking in places, an intent to the language, something beyond the mere ornamental. I think perhaps part of this is the micro - a number of these poems seem so localized that they aren't as engaging as they might be. In these cases, the ornate language feels empty, like trying to create interest in something that wouldn't be interesting, but not quite succeeding.

[Read the rest: http://alluringlyshort.com/2012/11/12... ‎]

[Colorado Review]

Reviewed for Colorado Review by Kevin Ward

[Kasey Jueds · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful and difficult... but one of those books in which the difficulty is necessary and also rewarding. Emily Wilson's language is gorgeous, unusual, her poems beautifully and subtly musical.