{"product_id":"plain-talk-rising-mark-dow-9780692107966","title":"Plain Talk Rising: poems","description":"\u003cp\u003eMark Dow's \u003cem\u003ePlain Talk Rising\u003c\/em\u003e opens when a boy opens his eyes to his mother's already-inescapable presence. It ends with the possibility of endlessness when the mother touches her own pregnant belly and \"for the first time he knows she knows he is there.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eDavid Rosenberg (author of \u003cem\u003eA Literary Bible\u003c\/em\u003e and co-author with Harold Bloom of \u003cem\u003eThe Book of J\u003c\/em\u003e) writes that \u003cem\u003ePlain Talk Rising \u003c\/em\u003e\"transmutes poetry into prose, and then back again, like an alchemist let loose in a writing workshop that may set alight our era of MFA's for good.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe \u003cem\u003eNew Haven Review\u003c\/em\u003e says that \u003cem\u003ePlain Talk Rising\u003c\/em\u003e is \"able to make us feel our lived-in time and a kind of eternal time. . . . Dow's brilliant wordplay is equal to the stringent -- and playful -- task he sets himself.\" \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSentences, stanzas, lines, words, and even individual letters are forms which \"make a man feel trapped and free.\" Syntax touches and delineates objects, ideas, and emotions evenly. \"What's most invisible's the main thing, after all.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e\"\u003c\/em\u003eDoes everyone fight something without form, \/ something formless, I mean, something parsed \/ to powder mistaken for nothing while meanwhile \/ slipped above the radar and re-forming itself on \/ a wider perimeter, formlessness notwithstanding, \/ or is that just me?\" \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBefore being \"self-published,\"\u003cem\u003e Plain Talk Rising\u003c\/em\u003e was a finalist in the Colorado Prize, New Issues, and Yale Series competitions. It was a semi-finalist for the St. Lawrence Book Award from Black Lawrence Press. The poems in \u003cem\u003ePlain Talk Rising\u003c\/em\u003e were written between the mid-1980s and early 2000s. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eRead more about the book on the \u003cem\u003eAgni\u003c\/em\u003e blog (\"Dick Talk,\" Sept. 3, 2018).\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eDow's poems and nonfiction have appeared in a variety of print and online journals, including \u003cem\u003eAlaska Quarterly Review\u003c\/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003eChicago Review, Conjunctions, Drunken Boat, Fascicle, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Paris Review, Pequod\u003c\/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003e PN Review\u003c\/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003eSLAM! Wrestling, \u003c\/em\u003e \u003cem\u003eThreepenny Review, and 3: AM Magazine. \u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA graduate of Yale University and the University of California at Irvine, Dow is also the author of \u003cem\u003eAmerican Gulag: Inside U.S. Immigration Prisons\u003c\/em\u003e (California, 2004).\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e***\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e[Erratum: Some copies of \u003cem\u003ePlain Talk Rising\u003c\/em\u003e may require the following correction: on p. 14, the penultimate line of the second stanza should read: \". . . To remember and forget are not two opposite acts here\".]\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Mark Dow\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 0692107967\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780692107966\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e PTR (New York)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 09\/01\/2018\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 60\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.19lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 8.25h x 5.50w x 0.14d","brand":"Mark Dow","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":43925643723007,"sku":"9780692107966","price":11.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/products\/img_9b6bc1da-f0de-403d-9ff2-c0aa24eab472.jpg?v=1681078492","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/plain-talk-rising-mark-dow-9780692107966","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}