Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Cracks in the Invisible: Poems
    Cracks in the Invisible: Poems
    Cracks in the Invisible: Poems
    Ebook108 pages47 minutes

    Cracks in the Invisible: Poems

    By Jennifer E. Brooks

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Stephen Kampa’s poems are witty and restless in their pursuit of an intelligent modern faith. They range from a four-line satire of office inspirational posters to a lengthy meditation on the silence of God. The poems also revel in the prosodic possibilities of English’shigh and low registers: a twenty–one line homageto Lord Byron that turns on three rhymes (one of which is “eisegesis”); a sestina whose end words include “sentimental,” “Marseilles,” and “Martian;” sapphics on the death of Ray Charles; and intricately modulated stanzas on the 1931 Spanish–language movie version of Dracula.

    Despite the metaphysical seriousness, there is alwaysan undercurrent of stylistic levity — a panoply of puns, comic rhymes, and loving misquotations of canonical literature — that suggests comedy and tragedy are inextricably bound in human experience.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOhio University Press
    Release dateMay 11, 2011
    ISBN9780821443767
    Cracks in the Invisible: Poems
    Author

    Jennifer E. Brooks

    Jennifer E. Brooks is associate professor of history Auburn University.

    Related to Cracks in the Invisible

    Related ebooks

    Poetry For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Rooted

      May 10, 2019

      Rooted
      9 min read

    • Article

      Five Poems

      Sep 1, 2020

      at some point my translationsand my notes flew directly to my ear another dayalone in these white chairs I rest on sandan island rests upon the waterI remember all the kinds of wind the light could makeif I walk by different streetsthe gardens I coul

      2 min read

    • Article

      Must-Read Poetry: November 2020

      Nov 5, 2020

      Stop obsessively refreshing the New York Times's elections page, and check out these new books of poetry by Alice Quinn, Margaret Atwood, Yi Lei, Karina Borowicz, Valzhyna Mort, and Paul Celan. The post Must-Read Poetry: November 2020 appeared first

      6 min read

    • Article

      The Art of Poetry No. 106

      Dec 15, 2019

      The Art of Poetry No. 106
      30 min read

    • Article

      FLICKERS APR Books

      Sep 1, 2019

      FLICKERS APR Books
      16 min read

    • Article

      Flood The World With Beauty

      Nov 1, 2019

      A big literary conference is probably not the best place for a poet dealing with a mental breakdown. But there I was at AWP, skittishly perusing tables at the book fair, under the garish lights of the Minneapolis Convention Center. For two years, par

      8 min read

    • Article

      All This Blood and Love

      Nov 22, 2017

      All This Blood and Love
      6 min read

    • Article

      Must-Read Poetry: May 2020

      May 6, 2020

      Our own Nick Ripatrazone takes a look a new poetry from John Freeman, Rosanna Warren, Juditha Dowd and Kiki Petrosino—plus an anthology edited Leah Silvieus and Lee Herrick. The post Must-Read Poetry: May 2020 appeared first on The Millions.

      5 min read

    • Article

      Apparition

      Mar 26, 2020

      Apparition
      8 min read

    • Article

      A Scent Of The Past

      Feb 2, 2023

      A Scent Of The Past
      4 min read

    • Article

      Wide Open Wordsmiths

      May 5, 2022

      Wide Open Wordsmiths
      5 min read

    • Article

      Tessa Castro

      Jul 26, 2023

      IN COMPETITION No 295 you were invited to write a poem called Roots. Cherry MacGregor started off in medias res: ‘Has the vine died? My husband had asked,/ As we enjoyed lunch in the garden.’ Another excellent opening came from DM Davis: ‘Roots, oh m

      2 min read

    • Article

      Five Poems

      Sep 1, 2022

      At first these poems were their own sweetfurlough or as Basquiat did it the reflexiveopening of a new personal phase for mealone that many have traveled beforebut never together a phrase too busy to sitand be spoken that awakens to the recurringwave

      2 min read

    • Article

      Cricket League

      Oct 1, 2020

      WINNERS MAY 2020 POETRY CONTEST I Wonder age 10 San Antonio, TX I Wonder I wonder what it’s like To be everyone else. What do they think about? Talk about? Feel? What’s it like To be short And look up at everyone else? What’s it like To not have a

      4 min read

    • Article

      Must-Read Poetry: September 2017

      Sep 11, 2017

      Isn’t that one of the purest goals of poetry—to justify our breaths? To recognize that we matter? The post Must-Read Poetry: September 2017 appeared first on The Millions.

      8 min read

    • Article

      Body Language

      Aug 14, 2019

      Body Language
      5 min read

    • Article

      Must-Read Poetry: July 2020

      Jul 1, 2020

      Our own Nick Ripatrazone takes a look at new books of poetry from Cleopatra Mathis, Alice Oswald, Karen Solie, and Charlotte Pence. The post Must-Read Poetry: July 2020 appeared first on The Millions.

      5 min read

    • Article

      Griefhouse

      Aug 29, 2023

      WHEN MY FATHER DIED, I began making weekly visits to a public grief house. I mean greenhouse. For seven Mondays, I rode the streetcar across town to warm myself in a glass building full of plants. No one had warned me that hard-hitting losses sometim

      3 min read

    • Article

      Meet Your New Favorite Poet

      Feb 20, 2019

      Meet Your New Favorite Poet
      6 min read

    • Article

      Must-Read Poetry: July 2017

      Jul 24, 2017

      2017 is a banner year for poetry: debuts, new takes by established authors, and collections that span careers. The post Must-Read Poetry: July 2017 appeared first on The Millions.

      5 min read

    • Article

      Wonderful Things

      Sep 7, 2023

      SHORTLISTED IN WM’S TUTANKHAMUN POETRY COMPETITION WERE: Guy Carter, Petersfield, Hampshire; Christine Griffin, Hucclecote, Gloucester; Sarah Das Gupta, Mamuden, Essex; Tracey Kitchen, Daventry, Northamptonshire; Lesley Mason, Norwich, Norfolk; Julie

      5 min read

    • Article

      A Waking Dream

      Sep 19, 2019

      A Waking Dream
      7 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Cracks in the Invisible

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Cracks in the Invisible - Jennifer E. Brooks

      I. Sightings

      To see is to forget; I never tire of such news.

      —Donald Revell

      Phenomena, Numina, Startling Sparrows

      Faced with the world mistaken for the world,

      I’m not confused: it seems so sensible

      To call the loose, cyclonic pulse of leaves

      On sidewalks physics, and not a miracle.

      I understand a prophet undeceives

      Himself when, limping by the roadkill curled

      Beside the curb, he thinks theodicy

      Inadequate for even bestial pain,

      Or when, dispersing the loud shroud of flies

      That swaddles it, he wonders how the sane

      Escape their own conclusions. Sense defies

      Every compendium of mystery,

      And if I’m senseless, then, for holding this

      World most enlightening when its premises

      Grow thinnest, I am glad to be struck dumb.

      Look: fireflies punctuate the night with green

      Epigrams on love, petunias keen

      For the dead possum, and electrons hum

      Concentric hymns to probability

      While leaf-swirls sing in fractal harmony.

      Best is this line of sparrows that have shown

      Their utter distance from the disapproving

      Caws of the crows by fleshing out a moving

      Ellipsis leading into the unknown.

      Theodicy

      Sometimes you wake up inexplicably

      Cheerful. Substantial reasons aren’t the issue—

      You have a queen-sized bed and clean beige sheets,

      And over scrambled eggs you’ll skim an issue

      Of Newsweek, The Economist, or Time—

      But that this blessing should be given time

      And time again—not every day, but often

      Enough to keep you from the chic despair

      Young artists wear like an expensive watch—

      Strikes you as something rich beyond compare.

      This gladness almost makes up for the days

      You stagger out the front door in a daze,

      Having already called your spouse a name

      That echoed through the kitchen like a dropped

      Plate breaking; hours will pass, and you’ll call home

      Only to find your partner has graciously dropped

      That morning’s catastrophic argument

      And pardoned you the words you never meant.

      You’ll leave the office happy, strolling past

      A sunlight-rumpled bed of flame-bright

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1