Salt Modern Poets
1 total work
Miss Havisham, Sharon Tate, the Hitchcock Blonde, the Woman who Became a Sofa: all lovely phantoms with stories to tell. This is poetry that tests the boundaries of acceptable subject matter, exploring obsessions (the Manson Family and the death of Sharon Tate, lovers and daughters, family secrets) and the obsessed (Hitchcock and his leading ladies, Miss Havisham, rural weirdos and local heroes).
Here are "still lives" that seem fixed by choice or circumstance, but draw you in to the mystery and ingenuity of the limitless moment. The enviable lives of the rich and famous, movie stars and Beverly Hills residents, are shown to be just as fixed and circumscribed, but a lot less secure.
Transformation or escape is possible, sometimes with the help of a little magic, a criminal act, or the blind leap of faith characteristic of those in love. Not all transformations are to our taste: be careful what you wish for, lovely phantoms.