The Girl Who Quit at Leviticus - Paperback

by Suzanne Rhodenbaugh (Author)

The poems of The Girl Who Quit at Leviticus are, like all forms of story, about sex and death: the life force and whatever is its negation or absence. They don't want to deny the regret, rage and dread of a life, but they also want to openly admit delight and joy, especially through the delectations of sound and humor. Their forebears include The Old Testament, Mark Twain, and hillbilly music, with a little Fran Lebowitz thrown in.

Their means vary from very short lyrics; to nonce sonnets; to the multi-part prose poem "The Views of the Widow's Daughter," with its recurring imagery of eyes, blue, white and dark, and a direct athwart voice that moves through a life. The poems are sometimes analogues, including letter, song, list, testament and anecdote. Some are near water - creek, lake, river and ocean -- the poet came up out of Florida and Georgia. And the voice often inhabits gardens, which like poems must have both control and wildness to be beautiful. The poems may show it's possible to be irrepressible, even in a swan song.