Booksmith hosts a special evening of readings by poets Katie Ford and Katie Peterson! Please join us.
The poems in Katie Ford’s fourth collection implore their audience—the divine and the human—for attention, for revelation, and, perhaps above all, for companionship. The extraordinary sequence at the heart of this book taps into the radical power of the sonnet form, bending it into a kind of metaphysical and psychological outcry. Beginning in the cramped space of selfhood—in the bedroom, cluttered with doubts, and in the throes of marital loss—these poems edge toward the clarity of “what I can know and admit to knowing.” In song and in silence, Ford inhabits the rooms of anguish and redemption with scouring exactness. This is poetry that “can break open, // it can break your life, it will break you // until you remain.” If You Have to Go is Ford’s most luminous and moving collection.
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Katie Ford is the author of three previous poetry collections: Blood Lyrics, Colosseum, and Deposition. The recipient of a Lannan Literary Fellowship and the Larry Levis Reading Prize, she teaches at the University of California, Riverside.
Katie Peterson is the author of four books of poetry, This One Tree,Permission, and The Accounts. Her fourth collection, A Piece of Good News, will be published by FSG in February 2019. The winner of the Rilke Prize in Poetry from the University of North Texas, she is Director of the Creative Writing Program at the University of California, Davis. Katie’s author photo was taken by Jackson Frishman.
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The poems in Katie Ford’s fourth collection implore their audience—the divine and the human—for attention, for revelation, and, perhaps above all, for companionship. The extraordinary sequence at the heart of this book taps into the radical power of the sonnet form, bending it into a kind of metaphysical and psychological outcry. Beginning in the cramped space of selfhood—in the bedroom, cluttered with doubts, and in the throes of marital loss—these poems edge toward the clarity of “what I can know and admit to knowing.” In song and in silence, Ford inhabits the rooms of anguish and redemption with scouring exactness. This is poetry that “can break open, // it can break your life, it will break you // until you remain.” If You Have to Go is Ford’s most luminous and moving collection.
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Katie Ford is the author of three previous poetry collections: Blood Lyrics, Colosseum, and Deposition. The recipient of a Lannan Literary Fellowship and the Larry Levis Reading Prize, she teaches at the University of California, Riverside.
Katie Peterson is the author of four books of poetry, This One Tree,Permission, and The Accounts. Her fourth collection, A Piece of Good News, will be published by FSG in February 2019. The winner of the Rilke Prize in Poetry from the University of North Texas, she is Director of the Creative Writing Program at the University of California, Davis. Katie’s author photo was taken by Jackson Frishman.
Booksmith hosts a special evening of readings by poets Katie Ford and Katie Peterson! Please join us.
The poems in Katie Ford’s fourth collection implore their audience—the divine and the human—for attention, for revelation, and, perhaps above all, for companionship. The extraordinary sequence at the heart of this book taps into the radical power of the sonnet form, bending it into a kind of metaphysical and psychological outcry. Beginning in the cramped space of selfhood—in the bedroom, cluttered with doubts, and in the throes of marital loss—these poems edge toward the clarity of “what I can know and admit to knowing.” In song and in silence, Ford inhabits the rooms of anguish and redemption with scouring exactness. This is poetry that “can break open, // it can break your life, it will break you // until you remain.” If You Have to Go is Ford’s most luminous and moving collection.
---
Katie Ford is the author of three previous poetry collections: Blood Lyrics, Colosseum, and Deposition. The recipient of a Lannan Literary Fellowship and the Larry Levis Reading Prize, she teaches at the University of California, Riverside.
Katie Peterson is the author of four books of poetry, This One Tree,Permission, and The Accounts. Her fourth collection, A Piece of Good News, will be published by FSG in February 2019. The winner of the Rilke Prize in Poetry from the University of North Texas, she is Director of the Creative Writing Program at the University of California, Davis. Katie’s author photo was taken by Jackson Frishman.
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The poems in Katie Ford’s fourth collection implore their audience—the divine and the human—for attention, for revelation, and, perhaps above all, for companionship. The extraordinary sequence at the heart of this book taps into the radical power of the sonnet form, bending it into a kind of metaphysical and psychological outcry. Beginning in the cramped space of selfhood—in the bedroom, cluttered with doubts, and in the throes of marital loss—these poems edge toward the clarity of “what I can know and admit to knowing.” In song and in silence, Ford inhabits the rooms of anguish and redemption with scouring exactness. This is poetry that “can break open, // it can break your life, it will break you // until you remain.” If You Have to Go is Ford’s most luminous and moving collection.
---
Katie Ford is the author of three previous poetry collections: Blood Lyrics, Colosseum, and Deposition. The recipient of a Lannan Literary Fellowship and the Larry Levis Reading Prize, she teaches at the University of California, Riverside.
Katie Peterson is the author of four books of poetry, This One Tree,Permission, and The Accounts. Her fourth collection, A Piece of Good News, will be published by FSG in February 2019. The winner of the Rilke Prize in Poetry from the University of North Texas, she is Director of the Creative Writing Program at the University of California, Davis. Katie’s author photo was taken by Jackson Frishman.
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