Prairie Fever
by
Mary Biddinger (Goodreads Author)
"Mary Biddinger is a beguiling shape-shifter, one who suffuses her writing with electricity and alacrity of language. I marvel at the elegant architecture and scope of each poem. The veritable menagerie of animals that visit these pages simply enchants: zebras, rhinos, marabou, goldfish, bears, and banana spiders. These poems bite and scare, ravish and delight. Prairie Fev...more
Paperback
Published
February 1st 2007
by Steel Toe Books
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While my focus went immediately to the prairie part of the title, it would have been better placed in the fever, for that is what this collection is...feverish. I read the poems in one long torrent of words and was nearly exhausted when I finished. These poems are tightly wound in both language and meaning. One gets the feeling that the speaker of each poem has been waiting a long time to say whatever has been kept still and silent for too long.
Woven of both first- and second-person points of vi...more
Woven of both first- and second-person points of vi...more
Nov 16, 2008
Rachel
added it
Mary Biddinger's poems are like small movies of plays Tennessee Williams never wrote because he wasn't a woman, but would have if he had been. The depth of characterization, the vivid settings and original language create a spell not easily shaken off. Rueful wisdom shines through many of these mini-memoir poems. A terrific read.
In Prairie Fever you will encounter bar fights, lick whiskey from flasks, glimpse zebras and dead girls. Biddinger tells gritty, surreal stories of the rural Midwest. Somewhat of a formalist, she makes expert use of short lines, tight couplets, and Ghazals while letting loose in the occasional prose poem. As always, a thrilling read.
Jul 12, 2009
Elizabeth J.
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One of the best books of poetry I've read this year. I know these places. This poet is a force to be reckoned with.
May 06, 2013
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Recommends it for:
Ohioans, Midwesterners
Recommended to Grace by:
Honors English 11
Oct 02, 2012
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Mary Biddinger is the author of the poetry collections Prairie Fever (Steel Toe Books, 2007), Saint Monica (Black Lawrence Press, 2011), and O Holy Insurgency (Black Lawrence Press, 2011), and co-editor of The Monkey and the Wrench: Essays into Contemporary Poetics (University of Akron Press, 2011). Her poetry has recently appeared in Barrelhouse, Bat City Review, Blackbird, Devil's Lake, Forklift...more
More about Mary Biddinger...
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