{"product_id":"information-desk-robyn-schiff-9780143136804","title":"Information Desk: An Epic","description":"\u003cb\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eNew York Times Book Review \u003c\/i\u003eEdtitors' Choice \u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"Among the year's highlights . . . groundbreaking, epic . . . Like visitors exiting the Met's galleries, readers will emerge from \u003ci\u003eInformation Desk \u003c\/i\u003ebedazzled by the transformative horizons of art.\" --\u003ci\u003eWashington Post\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"An\u003cb\u003e effluvial rush of memory, desire, data, and metaphor . . . It's bracing to encounter a mind so voracious, so unapologetic in its intelligence.\u003cb\u003e\" \u003c\/b\u003e--\u003ci\u003eNew York Review of Books\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eA book-length poem set in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, from a writer whose work offers \"something few poets ever discover: a vision of the whole world\" (Dan Chiasson, \u003ci\u003eThe New Yorker\u003c\/i\u003e) \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eRobyn Schiff's fourth collection is an ambitious book-length poem in three parts set at The Metropolitan Museum of Art's information desk, where Schiff long ago held a staff position. Elaborately mapping an interconnected route in and out of the museum through history, material, and memory, \u003ci\u003eInformation Desk: An Epic \u003c\/i\u003etakes us on an anguished soul-quest and ecstatic intellectual query to confront the violent forces that inform the museum's encyclopedic collection and the spiritual powers of art. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eNovelistic in its sweep, frantically informative, and deeply intimate in its private recollections, \u003ci\u003eInformation Desk: An Epic \u003c\/i\u003ewayfares with riveting lyric intensity through an epic array of topics and concerns, including illusion, deception, self-deception, complicity, lecherous coworkers, the composition of pigment, the scattering of seeds, ideas, and capital, and insect infestations spreading within artwork. Along the way, Schiff pauses to invoke three terrifying muses--parasitic wasps--in desperate awe of their powers of precision and generative energy. \u003ci\u003eInformation Desk: An Epic\u003c\/i\u003e undertakes a hemorrhaging ekphrastic journey through artifice and the natural world.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Robyn Schiff\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 0143136801\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780143136804\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Penguin Books\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 08\/15\/2023\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 144\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.45lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 8.90h x 5.80w x 0.40d\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eReview Citation(s): \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e 09\/18\/2023","brand":"Robyn Schiff","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":44074714628351,"sku":"9780143136804","price":20.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/files\/img_8e00d39f-cec2-4f52-8c81-a17d08bea888.jpg?v=1685455348","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/information-desk-robyn-schiff-9780143136804","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}