{"product_id":"the-alphabet-not-unlike-the-world-paperback","title":"The Alphabet Not Unlike the World - Paperback","description":"\u003cp\u003eby \u003cb\u003eKatrina Vandenberg\u003c\/b\u003e (Author)\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eIn her highly ambitious second collection of poems, Katrina Vandenberg takes her inspiration from the alphabet.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA meditation on the hump of a camel, and what it hides. A reminder that tomatoes belong to the nightshade family, and a vision of the plant as Adam's downfall. The Book of Kells, gold-leafed and extravagantly decorated by monks. Titled for letters of the Phoenician alphabet, and employing such innovative forms as the ancient ghazal, these poems are richly grounded in objects both humble and exotic. Vandenberg explores the intersection of power and forgiveness, and deciphers the seemingly indecipherable in emotionally poignant ways. \"What will protect us?\" one poem asks. \"The words will be our weapons. In the end.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMoving between the physical and the abstract, the individual and the collective, \u003cem\u003eThe Alphabet Not Unlike the World\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cem\u003e \u003c\/em\u003eunearths meaning--with astonishing beauty--from the pain of loss and separation.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eFront Jacket\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003ePraise for \u003ci\u003eThe Alphabet Not Unlike the World\u003c\/i\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"Katrina Vandenberg recognizes the alphabet as a site where the global and the local join, where history becomes the present moment, where history has moment, is momentous. In these poems, '\u003ci\u003eseeing\u003c\/i\u003e is not the same \/ as \u003ci\u003eseeing through\u003c\/i\u003e, ' but both occur, guided by the double recognition of the alphabet as both medium and message. These poems live near enough to 'the house of the unsaid' that when in one of them the first person invites the second to 'tell me if you want me to stop, ' a reader may say, as I did out loud, \u003ci\u003eNot yet. Please, not yet.\u003c\/i\u003e\"\u003cbr\u003e--H. L. Hix \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"A stranger pays your bar tab out of pity; the inmate--seeking approval--changes his tune year after year; a saint stands still enough for birds to nest in his hand: these poems take us to the profane, to shed light on the tenuous sacred. Vandenberg's prosodic gift takes us to the breezy edge of the line. In traditional forms like the ghazal, witty alphabet poems, and cyclonic, free verse, she reminds us that truth already is slant, 'Hell is holding onto a secret, some of us already know.'\" --Kristin Naca \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"A deeply confident, compelling voice, with strong music, originality, and flow. I wanted to go wherever it went. Passionate with a keen sense of surprise, these poems are funny, serious, and wise all at once. Bravo.\"\u003cbr\u003e--Naomi Shihab Nye \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"Vandenberg fills her hands with the world and offers it to us in a gleaming, dripping plenty: a love letter to letters, an omnibus inventory of signs, symbols, and gestures, a guileless gift of all the things she loves, knows, and feels.\"\u003cbr\u003e--Todd Boss \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"I had meant to read a few poems, then return to the book another time. Two hours later I put it down, shaken and exhilarated. It careens between heartbreak and breakthrough in ways that began by amazing me and finished by moving me to the point where I had no choice but to agree when Vandenberg writes in the book's last poem, 'You can't, in the end\/close the book.'\"\u003cbr\u003e--Jim Moore \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eKatrina Vandenberg is the author of \u003ci\u003eAtlas, and co-author of the chapbook \u003ci\u003eOn Marriage\u003c\/i\u003e. She lives in Saint Paul, Minnesota.\u003ch3\u003eAuthor Biography\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eKatrina Vandenberg\u003c\/b\u003e is the co-author, with Todd Boss, of the chapbook entitled \u003ci\u003eOn Marriage\u003c\/i\u003e (Red Dragonfly Press, 2008), and the author of the poetry collection \u003ci\u003eAtlas\u003c\/i\u003e (Milkweed Editions, 2004). Her poems and essays have appeared in the \u003ci\u003eAmerican Scholar\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003ePost Road Magazine\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eOrion Magazine\u003c\/i\u003e, the \u003ci\u003eIowa Review\u003c\/i\u003e, and other magazines. She is the recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship, a Bush Artist Fellowship, a Loft-McKnight Award in Poetry, and a Tennessee Williams Scholarship to the Sewanee Writers' Conference. In 2008-09, she was the resident fellow at the Amy Clampitt House in Lenox, Massachusetts. She lives in Saint Paul, Minnesota, with her husband, the novelist John Reimringer.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eNumber of Pages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 96\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eDimensions:\u003c\/strong\u003e 0.3 x 8.4 x 5.4 IN\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublication Date:\u003c\/strong\u003e May 15, 2012\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Books by splitShops","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51760510042400,"sku":"9781571314468","price":16.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0974\/9764\/5344\/files\/54978b4a545d6cd41f6f23131a11b5dd.webp?v=1780181955","url":"https:\/\/ebocreations.com\/products\/the-alphabet-not-unlike-the-world-paperback","provider":"The E-Book Oasis LLC","version":"1.0","type":"link"}