Powers

by Marisha Chamberlain

These are poems distinguished by their faith. Faith that knows pain need not beget more pain, but rather compassion—which is relation. There is a stabbed, wounded sensation at the heart of many of the poems. Or the pain occurs off-stage, in a sense, as it so often catches us in our lives, unaware. From the little social hurt of being ignored by an attractive man ("Beauty") to the murder of a girl in the long, stately "New Words for the Funeral Mass of Pamela Mason", people keep getting stabbed—or stab back, even at themselves, as the alcoholic younger sister in "Oceanography" does.

This commitment to relation (rather than to judgment or distanced or ironic observation) is the fundamental quality of poetic endeavor. It is faith, as revealed in art. And Marisha Chamberlain has given herself over to this faith, as Willa Cather says she wishes to do in the memorable, clear-voiced persona poem "Willa Cather's Final Trip to Nebraska." Cather's wistful desire:
to be a face, human, about to speak,
yet unconscious of itself:
a face dissolving into its surroundings
is Marisha Chamberlain's achievement in this book.

79 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1983

About the author

Marisha Chamberlain is a novelist, playwright, poet and librettist. Her debut novel, The Rose Variations, was published by Soho Press.Her plays have been staged all over the world: in South Africa, Germany, Australia, Turkey, Britain and Canada as well as in the United States. Scheherazade, a stage play, won the Dramatists Guild/CBS Regional and National Awards and in its teleplay version was broadcast across the United States and screened at the British Film Institute Festival. Her stage adaptation of Little Women was premiered by the Children’s Theater Company of Minneapolis and subsequently produced by the Stratford Ontario Festival Theater, Stage One of Louisville and Kansas City Repertory Theater.Her ballet, The Worn-Out Dancing Shoes, was toured nationally by the Children’s Theater Company.She began a significant collaboration with composer Carol Barnett in 1997 with the premiere of their chamber opera,Meeting at Seneca Falls by the Minnesota Orchestra.
The World Beloved: A Bluegrass Mass with text by Chamberlain and music by Barnett was commissioned by VocalEssence under the direction of Phillip Brunelle and premiered as a joint performance by the VocalEssence chorus and the celebrated Bluegrass ensemble, Monroe Crossing. The World Beloved was published by Boosey & Hawkes and released on CD on the Clarion label in 2007 and is performed widely. A second Bluegrass/choral work, Mortals & Angels: a Bluegrass Te Deum, with composer Carol Barnett, was commissioned by Distinguished Concerts International and will premiere at Carnegie Hall on January 25, 2016.