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Barbaro: Beyond Brokenness
Book by Lyn Lifshin
152 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2009
5 people want to read
About the author
Lyn Lifshin
142 books11 followersLyn Diane Lifshin (1942) is an American poet and teacher.
Born in Barre, VT, she was raised in Middlebury, VT. She earned a bachelor's degree in English from Syracuse University and a master's degree in English from the University of Vermont (writing a thesis on Dylan Thomas). She also studied at Brandeis University, the Bread Loaf School of English and attended the Bread Loaf Writer's Conference.
Lifshin moved to Schenectady, NY in the 1970s with her then husband who worked for General Electric. She enrolled in a doctoral program in English at SUNY Albany, and began submitting her work for publication. She quickly began appearing in a variety of literary magazines. When she left SUNY, she began teaching creative writing workshops at various public venues such as libraries as well as at her home in Niskayuna, NY. Eventually, she began earning a living primarily from workshops, readings, and visiting faculty positions.
Lifshin has been called "The Queen of the Lit Mags" and "The Queen of Modern Romance Poetry". Over 120 books and chapbooks of her work have been published. She has also edited 4 anthologies (appearing in innumerable others) and was the subject of the award winning documentary film, Not Made of Glass. Her work has appeared in numerous literary magazines and cultural publications, including The American Scholar, Christian Science Monitor, Ploughshares, nthWORD, Blue Lake Review, Dunes Review, and Rolling Stone Magazine.
Bibliographers and literary critics would be hard-pressed to find a literary journal that has not published at least one Lifshin poem at one time or another. To date, however, there is no comprehensive bibliography of her publications and unpublished manuscripts.
She currently divides her time between a home in Niskayuna, NY and a residence in Virginia.
(from Wikipedia)
Born in Barre, VT, she was raised in Middlebury, VT. She earned a bachelor's degree in English from Syracuse University and a master's degree in English from the University of Vermont (writing a thesis on Dylan Thomas). She also studied at Brandeis University, the Bread Loaf School of English and attended the Bread Loaf Writer's Conference.
Lifshin moved to Schenectady, NY in the 1970s with her then husband who worked for General Electric. She enrolled in a doctoral program in English at SUNY Albany, and began submitting her work for publication. She quickly began appearing in a variety of literary magazines. When she left SUNY, she began teaching creative writing workshops at various public venues such as libraries as well as at her home in Niskayuna, NY. Eventually, she began earning a living primarily from workshops, readings, and visiting faculty positions.
Lifshin has been called "The Queen of the Lit Mags" and "The Queen of Modern Romance Poetry". Over 120 books and chapbooks of her work have been published. She has also edited 4 anthologies (appearing in innumerable others) and was the subject of the award winning documentary film, Not Made of Glass. Her work has appeared in numerous literary magazines and cultural publications, including The American Scholar, Christian Science Monitor, Ploughshares, nthWORD, Blue Lake Review, Dunes Review, and Rolling Stone Magazine.
Bibliographers and literary critics would be hard-pressed to find a literary journal that has not published at least one Lifshin poem at one time or another. To date, however, there is no comprehensive bibliography of her publications and unpublished manuscripts.
She currently divides her time between a home in Niskayuna, NY and a residence in Virginia.
(from Wikipedia)
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
March 16, 2010
Lyn Lifshin, Barbaro: Beyond Brokenness (Texas Review Press, 2009)
I was not a big Barbaro fan. In the Derby, my money was on Lawyer Ron (and I kept following that financial black hole until his retirement, unfortunately). But after the Preakness, like every other horse fan (and millions of non-horse-fans), I got caught up in the drama of Barbaro's surgeries, seemingly miraculous recoveries, and final decline. And after the publication of The Licorice Daughter a couple of years ago, I figured there would eventually be a Barbaro book from Lyn Lifshin. It happened a lot faster than I expected. And I am, and have been for a very long time, a big Lyn Lifhsin fan.
The biggest problem with the way the outside world relates to Lifshin's writing (this is not, I stress, a problem with the writing itself) is that, like Bukowski, Lifshin can feel rhythm and word choice in her blood. It's either second nature to her or she spends a lot of time revising details that would make your head itch to think about. But when it comes out of the mill at the end of the day, it all looks as if it were dashed off on the back of a cocktail napkin with no thought whatsoever.
“weeks before the
Derby, Barbaro's
days were like
any other, a
stable like
any other
Periwinkle light
behind the spires
at Churchill Downs”
(“As Blossoms Rose and Faded”)
Yes, there are things I'd suggest changing, were they presented to me at a workshop (most notably ending lines with articles, which drives me up the wall), but I wonder if they're not part of the facade of naivete. For what seems dashed-off is quite nicely rhythmic; “PERiwinkle LIGHT beHIND the SPIRES at CHURCHill DOWNS” suggests a horse walking across the paddock cobbles at Churchill, in my mind. (Possibly, given the smaller stress on the “win” in “periwinkle”, a horse on three legs.) And more, so few poets are capable of taking a prose-like interest in a subject and stretching it across a book of poems. While this is not narrative poetry (in the poems that can stand on their own, anyway), it is a collection of lyrics that function as narrative poetry, and that is a fine thing indeed. At the end, then, you have to come at a book like this from two directions. Does it succeed as lyrics, and does it succeed as a narrative? The first question gets a qualified yes; there are a few pieces that one wouldn't be able to pull out and send to a magazine without surrounding pieces for context, but there aren't many of them. As for the second question, absolutely. This is as complete a documentation of the trajectory of Barbaro as any biography, and a more concise one to boot. A must for horse racing fans. ****
I was not a big Barbaro fan. In the Derby, my money was on Lawyer Ron (and I kept following that financial black hole until his retirement, unfortunately). But after the Preakness, like every other horse fan (and millions of non-horse-fans), I got caught up in the drama of Barbaro's surgeries, seemingly miraculous recoveries, and final decline. And after the publication of The Licorice Daughter a couple of years ago, I figured there would eventually be a Barbaro book from Lyn Lifshin. It happened a lot faster than I expected. And I am, and have been for a very long time, a big Lyn Lifhsin fan.
The biggest problem with the way the outside world relates to Lifshin's writing (this is not, I stress, a problem with the writing itself) is that, like Bukowski, Lifshin can feel rhythm and word choice in her blood. It's either second nature to her or she spends a lot of time revising details that would make your head itch to think about. But when it comes out of the mill at the end of the day, it all looks as if it were dashed off on the back of a cocktail napkin with no thought whatsoever.
“weeks before the
Derby, Barbaro's
days were like
any other, a
stable like
any other
Periwinkle light
behind the spires
at Churchill Downs”
(“As Blossoms Rose and Faded”)
Yes, there are things I'd suggest changing, were they presented to me at a workshop (most notably ending lines with articles, which drives me up the wall), but I wonder if they're not part of the facade of naivete. For what seems dashed-off is quite nicely rhythmic; “PERiwinkle LIGHT beHIND the SPIRES at CHURCHill DOWNS” suggests a horse walking across the paddock cobbles at Churchill, in my mind. (Possibly, given the smaller stress on the “win” in “periwinkle”, a horse on three legs.) And more, so few poets are capable of taking a prose-like interest in a subject and stretching it across a book of poems. While this is not narrative poetry (in the poems that can stand on their own, anyway), it is a collection of lyrics that function as narrative poetry, and that is a fine thing indeed. At the end, then, you have to come at a book like this from two directions. Does it succeed as lyrics, and does it succeed as a narrative? The first question gets a qualified yes; there are a few pieces that one wouldn't be able to pull out and send to a magazine without surrounding pieces for context, but there aren't many of them. As for the second question, absolutely. This is as complete a documentation of the trajectory of Barbaro as any biography, and a more concise one to boot. A must for horse racing fans. ****
February 29, 2012
I have enjoyed a few poems by Lyn Lifshin in the past. I don't think any of them were in this book. Perhaps there were a handful of clever lines scattered here and there, but mostly this book is filled prosy lines and hapless cliches that do little to engage the reader, even a reader like me who wanted this collection to succeed.
I like the idea for this book, something that captures not only the life of this horse, but it's presumably unique spirit. But it doesn't come off. Most of the fair to good poems need revision. Most of the poems need not have been included.
I wanted to like this book. But it was a grave disappointment.
I like the idea for this book, something that captures not only the life of this horse, but it's presumably unique spirit. But it doesn't come off. Most of the fair to good poems need revision. Most of the poems need not have been included.
I wanted to like this book. But it was a grave disappointment.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews