{"product_id":"chameleon-hours-elise-partridge-9780226647913","title":"Chameleon Hours","description":"From \u003ci\u003eWays of Going\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003efor Steve\u003cbr\u003eWill it be like paragliding\u003cb\u003e--\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003egossamer takeoff, seedlike drifting down\u003cbr\u003einto a sunlit, unexpected grove? \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eOr ski-jumping--headlong soaring, \u003cbr\u003eski-tips piercing clouds, \u003cbr\u003ecrystal revelations astonishing my goggles? \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e. . . . Skittery flicker of a glare-weary lizard\u003cbr\u003estartled into the sheltering wings of a leaf, \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003erusting freighter with a brimming hold\u003cbr\u003eshimmering onto a crimson edge. . . . \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eSad rower pushed from shore, \u003cbr\u003eI'll disappear like circles summoned\u003cbr\u003eby an oar's dip. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eHowever I burn through to the next atmosphere, \u003cbr\u003elet your dear face be the last thing I see. \u003cbr\u003e Whether writing poems about North American life and landscape; or love poems; or elegies for family and friends; or poems on serious, debilitating illness and the transformations it can effect--Elise Partridge offers in \u003ci\u003eChameleon Hours\u003c\/i\u003e words forged by suffering and courage. Full of wit and empathy, Partridge's poems draw inspiration from sources as whimsical as tortoises and pontoons, as poignant as a homeless woman taking shelter inside a post office on a winter night, and as deeply personal as her own cancer diagnosis at a young age. \u003ci\u003eChameleon Hours\u003c\/i\u003e is a book about the rewards of being reminded of one's own mortality and the lyric expression of life in all its intensity. \"In their ample, embracing, nuanced appetite for sensory experience, [Partridge's] poems achieve an ardent, compassionate and unsentimental vision.\"--Robert Pinsky, \u003ci\u003eWashington\u003c\/i\u003e\u003ci\u003e Post\u003c\/i\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e \"Partridge's impressive poems pursue a careful thinker's yearning for abandon, a loyal friend and partner's wish for change. Attentive to fact, to what she sees and knows, Partridge nonetheless makes space for what is wild, outside and within us--for the fears and the blanks of chemotherapy, for sharp variations within (and without) frames of metre and rhyme, and for the welcome consistencies of married love. She has learned detail-work, and patience, from Elizabeth Bishop, but she has made other virtues her own: riffs on familiar phrases open startling vistas and even her love poems get attractively practical. Hers is a welcome invitation: let's listen in.\"--Stephen Burt \"Reading \u003ci\u003eChameleon Hours\u003c\/i\u003e, I find myself marveling at the luck of each heron, mosquito, field of Queen Anne's Lace, each person, place, thing or circumstance in this beautiful book, to have Elise Partridge's exquisite and precise attention. And how lucky we are to get to listen in as she offers each of them her flawless ear; the book is full of understated sonic gems like 'a kickball straight into pink lilac.' In 'Chemo Side Effects: Memory, ' after describing 'groping in the thicket' for 'the word I want . . . scrabbling like a squirrel on the oak's far side, ' she tells us 'I could always pull the gift \/ from the lucky-dip barrel; scoop the right jewel \/ from my dragon's trove. . . .' We of course already know this. It's evident in every one of these poems.\"--Jacqueline Osherow \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cbr\u003ePraise for \u003ci\u003eFielder's Choice\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Partridge is a technical wizard for whom thinking and feeling are not separate activities. She is a hawk-like observer of the particular . . . many times ascending to pitch-perfect verse.\"--Ken Babstock, \u003ci\u003eGlobe and Mail\u003c\/i\u003e (Canada)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Elise Partridge\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 0226647919\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780226647913\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e University of Chicago Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 03\/01\/2008\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 112\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Hardcover","brand":"Elise Partridge","offers":[{"title":"Hardcover","offer_id":48086421078271,"sku":"9780226647913","price":53.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/files\/img_d22be3bd-f9d1-42be-9c98-12497c922bef.jpg?v=1769094577","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/chameleon-hours-elise-partridge-9780226647913","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}