The Keep

by Emily Wilson

The poems in The Keep are influenced by art, by paintings, by thinking about abstraction and figuration and the space between, beauty apprehended and lost, the divine apprehended and lost. Emily Wilson's poems are also saturated with nature; from the great oaks emptying, russet, gusseted to the caribou moving through us beyond numerous, each image connects the natural world of tides and marshes and forests to the human world of documentation and preservation. The image of the keep as a place of safety and as a kind of prison also informs this very strong collection.

Genres: Poetry

96 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 2001

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

[Edward Moore · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lushly populated with a rich vocabulary. Very nature-centric. Should be read at least twice, unhurriedly.

[Kent · Rating 5 out of 5]

I realize there are books that invest in nature and attempt to fashion a version of nature through language. Wilson's book, though, is truly exceptional in realizing this mimesis. The coming of the season is through language, the effulgence of intimacy is through language. What I appreciate most is the modulation between dense diction and a more relaxed one.

[Rowan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of those books that makes me feel heart-wrenchingly, delightedly inadequate. This is what I wish I could do with words. This book demands to be consumed slowly, word by word. Each poem a dense wordscape that must be read and reread, immersed in and languished over. Its rich and lush and slow. Luxurious.

[Caroline-manring · Rating 4 out of 5]

A bewitchingly smart, tender, lucid lens. While firmly present, these poems gesture beyond themselves, like stand-ins, skilled monks pointing at god. The ego can't get much of a toehold here. Crystalline.

[uena · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The rubied lung of sumac"


"Like a sheaf of struck match tips."


"The great brains of the beeches / divest themselves so sparingly."


"Don't you feel how everything is strained beyond / certain remembering?"


"Now the delicate hammers
pure cuts of bird
steel rings reassembling"

[Suzanne]

A bit confusing to follow, but a decent read.

[Tasha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quite stunning. Beautifully imagined phrases.