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As for Dream: Poems
A series of brief, haunting lyrics and prose fragments, the poems in As for Dream hover in suspension between states of consciousness or being. Hamilton's verse both illustrates and investigates the human experience at many different as we wake from the dream world, as we meet the loss or disruption of our desires, as we tend to the ill, and as we die. Once we cross those boundaries, does the self remain intact? These poems record and question moments when we slip from the casing of the body and the social world and try to make our way back, or find we cannot.
- GenresPoetry
80 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2001
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
May 17, 2016
As For Dream
Saskia Hamilton
The cover image of As For Dream, a collection of poetry by Saskia Hamilton, is Piero della Francesca’s The Dream of Constantine, which features a woman at the side of the Emperor Constantine as he sleeps. The painting is one of a series of frescoes entitled The History of the True Cross, and depicts the exact moment before Constantine’s visitation by an angel. That light, that visitation, that vision, prefigures the certainty of victory.
Is it a dream, or a vision? Does that matter? Maybe it’s both. Hamilton’s poetry in this volume looks at the power of dream, at love and loss and longing, of death and grieving, and of the uses of dream and imagination for coping. There are prose poems, there are fragments, one line poems, and the work is sometimes on the edge of surrealism. It is wonderful poetry, sometimes anguished, often playful, enigmatic at times, usually powerful.
Here's the first poem, after an epigraph haiku on dreaming from Basho:
The Song in the Dream
The song itself had hinges. The clasp on the eighteenth-century Bible
had hinges, which creaked; when you released the catch,
the book would sigh and expand.
The song was of two wholes joined by hinges,
and I was worried about the joining, the spaces in between
the joints, the weight of each side straining them.
One reviewer thought of this poem as a way of reading the poems, as if you might crack open each poem and stare into it, as it sighed and expanded as you read. Cool idea, yes? But it's true, it works. I liked these poems very much, and this is the very first Hamilton book I have read! More, more!
If you found this review boring you might like this hilarious video by Ben Folds about Saskia Hamilton:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JP5l...
Saskia Hamilton
The cover image of As For Dream, a collection of poetry by Saskia Hamilton, is Piero della Francesca’s The Dream of Constantine, which features a woman at the side of the Emperor Constantine as he sleeps. The painting is one of a series of frescoes entitled The History of the True Cross, and depicts the exact moment before Constantine’s visitation by an angel. That light, that visitation, that vision, prefigures the certainty of victory.
Is it a dream, or a vision? Does that matter? Maybe it’s both. Hamilton’s poetry in this volume looks at the power of dream, at love and loss and longing, of death and grieving, and of the uses of dream and imagination for coping. There are prose poems, there are fragments, one line poems, and the work is sometimes on the edge of surrealism. It is wonderful poetry, sometimes anguished, often playful, enigmatic at times, usually powerful.
Here's the first poem, after an epigraph haiku on dreaming from Basho:
The Song in the Dream
The song itself had hinges. The clasp on the eighteenth-century Bible
had hinges, which creaked; when you released the catch,
the book would sigh and expand.
The song was of two wholes joined by hinges,
and I was worried about the joining, the spaces in between
the joints, the weight of each side straining them.
One reviewer thought of this poem as a way of reading the poems, as if you might crack open each poem and stare into it, as it sighed and expanded as you read. Cool idea, yes? But it's true, it works. I liked these poems very much, and this is the very first Hamilton book I have read! More, more!
If you found this review boring you might like this hilarious video by Ben Folds about Saskia Hamilton:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JP5l...
July 8, 2009
WOW WOW WOW AMAZING
Incredibly spare lyrics and fragments, sometimes only two or three lines long. But an enormous amount of power in the unspoken before and after (and even during, as indicated with the strength-gathering pauses and line breaks) so that each word of each line of each lyric is pulled incredibly taut, humming with meaning so heavy it sounds like prophesy. Loss, loss and longing, natural decay of the human body reflected back by the seasons, roaring silence as a response to loss. Loss and longing.
I'm going to read this one about 17,000 more times.
YES YES WOW YES
Incredibly spare lyrics and fragments, sometimes only two or three lines long. But an enormous amount of power in the unspoken before and after (and even during, as indicated with the strength-gathering pauses and line breaks) so that each word of each line of each lyric is pulled incredibly taut, humming with meaning so heavy it sounds like prophesy. Loss, loss and longing, natural decay of the human body reflected back by the seasons, roaring silence as a response to loss. Loss and longing.
I'm going to read this one about 17,000 more times.
YES YES WOW YES
July 8, 2015
"Ratings" seem especially pointless with poetry so:
"Light reached into the room, from time to time, when the wind parted the leaves,
like hands
parting a shirt.
And all I remember is standing in a doorway,
the shadows around the doorway, an early evening darkness in the house."
"Light reached into the room, from time to time, when the wind parted the leaves,
like hands
parting a shirt.
And all I remember is standing in a doorway,
the shadows around the doorway, an early evening darkness in the house."
January 16, 2008
Lovely poems by a professor of mine. Some of the most beautiful are only one line long.
February 13, 2021
beautiful - hauntingly lyric fragments where the boundaries between vision and dream blur
August 26, 2023
Thinking of how context, time and voice affect poetry, these are very much personal, midwestern, gray, rain and crunched brown long grass, bearing and maybe carrying the weight of personal loss, breakup and past relationships. There are some poems I love, but the sadness is something I am not connecting with right now.
I do enjoy the playfulness that Hamilton sometimes has with subject and object, and the brevity in many of the poems is often powerful. I think there's a lot to study and admire here. While I found the collection on the whole to be too bleak for me I'm glad I got the book and plan to revisit some of the poems I enjoy the most.
I do enjoy the playfulness that Hamilton sometimes has with subject and object, and the brevity in many of the poems is often powerful. I think there's a lot to study and admire here. While I found the collection on the whole to be too bleak for me I'm glad I got the book and plan to revisit some of the poems I enjoy the most.
April 20, 2024
The entire collection feels like one big poem. Earthy, disturbing, quiet, still, subtle, fierce, full, questioning?
The House between Two Meadows
His Wife's Death
A Story
Weight
Early Winter
Waiting
Another Stupid Party
In the City
Work
The First Evening
The House between Two Meadows
His Wife's Death
A Story
Weight
Early Winter
Waiting
Another Stupid Party
In the City
Work
The First Evening
Want to Read
September 30, 2007Look for an upcoming review of this book in the winter issue of Contrary [http://www.contrarymagazine.com].
August 4, 2010
Poetry, for school. Beautiful, spare lyric poetry.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews