{"product_id":"underdog-katrina-roberts-9780295993355","title":"Underdog: Poems","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn \u003ci\u003eUnderdog\u003c\/i\u003e, poet Katrina Roberts draws on wide-ranging historical and cultural sources to consider questions of identity, to ask us to meditate on how each of us is \"other\" - native, immigrant, sojourner, alien - and to examine our at-once shared and foreign frontiers and margins. Throughout the book, the writer's \"home\" becomes a palimpsest of characters erased and resurrected. In boldly inventive poems, she addresses the lives of Chinese immigrants, the appeal of African Dogon tribal lore, the heroics and defeats of artists, canine astronauts, and Mexican farm laborers, to name just a few.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDramatic and lyrical, many poems become repositories for spells, memories, and tales. Here landscapes are faces to be studied and memorized; forgotten and overlooked legends and objects (whether quotidian, pop-cultural, ancient, or obscure), as well as characters from this planet and beyond, are retrieved and acknowledged. Other poems are concise prismatic shards, refracting and seeking specific meaning and even beauty in a world that is often both unpredictable and inscrutable. All are stitched together with unflinching compassion and a keen desire to bear witness, to comprehend something of the self's relevance in a global context.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe poems, often meticulously researched, are elaborate matrices of associations, translations, re-imaginings. Age-old mind-body questions emerge: how did we get here, these poems ask urgently, and in what ways will we carry on? What does it mean \"to be\" and \"to belong\" in times of crisis? They wonder at how individuals through the ages have handled, often with grace, tremendous injustice, and they seek to comprehend the mysteries of our perpetual migrations away from and toward each other.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTheir Flight is Practically Silent\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe says one thing meaning\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eits opposite. Before water starts to run, \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ean ache in the jaw leaves me\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003espeechless. A packet of photos: each face has been\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ecut out. This one: me, a child holding a wafer\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eof sky - a robin's egg. They used to say you have\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eher eyes. Another: wrists slashed\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eby light, lifted to offer the world a melon, caught up\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ehair in a twist off the shoulders, the neck, \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003emy neck - impossible and elegant - a swan's.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSuch grace shocks me. Who is this? That night\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ebefore the baby died: barn owls calling across\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ethe creek. Did he say: Hear them? Never\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eto be born at all; some people\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ewould say not even a baby, not \"viable.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA small sound - sizzle of bacon\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ecurling on a flat black pan, unseen. His arms\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ere-crossed. And this vessel\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003emade of ash, this monument rising\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003efrom dust? I didn't want any of it and I said so.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Katrina Roberts\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 0295993359\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780295993355\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e University of Washington Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 10\/01\/2013\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 96\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.30lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 8.80h x 5.60w x 0.60d","brand":"Katrina Roberts","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":48135965802751,"sku":"9780295993355","price":18.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/files\/img_9d2c0638-2885-4bbe-9007-225ab09cf6b3.jpg?v=1770159627","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/underdog-katrina-roberts-9780295993355","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}