Degrees of Latitude

by Laurel Blossom

Laurel Blossom's Degrees of Latitude is a book-length poem, really, divided by section breaks to give these are short sections, for the most part, and breezy, this is a book-length narrative that covers family and personal history and moves seamlessly through time and space. “[This is] almost a lyric novel, so sweepingly re-imagined is the life it illuminates but it is as well an expedition into territory seldom explored in lyric mode. Blossom begins her journey on an icebreaker during the white nights of a polar north—cold as childhood—and then turns her gaze upon the uncharted regions of family history, secrecy and illusion, bravely and with uncommon self-knowledge, in deft and beautifully cadenced language that belies the arduousness of her task. This work crosses, formally and insightfully, the traditional borders of confession and memoir, and moves into the unknown, mapping what is visible as well as what has, until now, been hidden. I have been waiting a long time to read this book, and it is very much worth the wait.”

94 pages, Paperback

First published October 31, 2007

About the author

LAUREL BLOSSOM’s second book-length narrative prose poem,Longevity, will be published by Four Way Books in October 2015. Four Way Books was profiled in the ARts Beat section of the New York Times on July 17, 2014. In order to illustrate its books' quality, publisher Martha Rhodes featured lines from Blossom's first book-klength narrative prose poem, Degrees of Latitude, which was published by Four Way Books in 2007. Blossom's most recent book of lyric poetry is Wednesday: New and Selected Poems, Ridgeway Press, 2004. Earlier books include The Papers Said (Greenhouse Review Press, 1993), What’s Wrong (Cobham & Hatherton Press, 1987), and a chapbook, Any Minute (Greenhouse Review Press, 1979). An earlier long poem, the mock epic “Easy Come/Easy Go,” was published in American Poetry Review in summer, 1976. Her work has appeared in a number of anthologies, including 180 More: Extraordinary Poems for Every Day, edited by Billy Collins (Random House, 2005), and in national and international journals including Poetry, Pequod, The Paris Review, Pleiades, xconnect, The Carolina Quarterly, Deadsnake Apotheosis, Many Mountains Moving, Seneca Review, things, and Harper’s, among others, and online at friggmagazine.com, BigCityLit.com, and elsewhere. Her poetry has been nominated for both the Elliston Prize and (multiple times) the Pushcart Prize.

Blossom is the editor of Splash! Great Writing About Swimming (Ecco Press, 1996) and Many Lights in Many Windows: Twenty Years of Great Fiction and Poetry from The Writers Community (Milkweed Editions, 1997), among others. She serves on the editorial board of Heliotrope: a journal of poetry.

Blossom has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Ohio Arts Council, and Harris Manchester College (Oxford University), where she was elected Regent Emeritus in 2008. She co-founded The Writers Community, the esteemed writing residency and advanced workshop program of the YMCA National Writer’s Voice. She serves on the Boards of the Laura (Riding) Jackson Foundation in Vero Beach, Florida and the Musical Arts Association in Cleveland, Ohio.

Blossom belongs to The Explorers Club in New York City. She lives in rural South Carolina, where she curates an occasional poetry and fiction reading series.

Reviews

[Susan Meyers · Rating 5 out of 5]

A strong voice and superb compression. The poet has a fine sense of drama.