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All the Fierce Tethers
Readers familiar with Lia Purpura's highly praised essay collections―Increase, On Looking, and Rough Likeness―will know she's a master of observation, a writer obsessed with the interplay between humans and the things they see. The subject matter of All the Fierce Tethers is wonderfully varied, both low (muskrats, slugs, a stained quilt in a motel room) and lofty (shadows, prayer, the idea of beauty). In "Treatise Against Irony," she counters this all-too modern affliction with ferocious optimism and "The opposite of irony is nakedness." In "My Eagles," our nation's symbol is viewed from all angles―nesting, flying, politicized, preserved. The essay in itself could be a small anthology. And, in a fresh move, Purpura turns to her own, racially divided Baltimore neighborhood, where a blood stain appears on a street separating East (with its Value Village) and West (with its community garden). Finalist for the National Book Critics Award, winner of a Guggenheim, NEA and four Pushcart Prizes, Lia Purpura returns with a collection both sustaining and challenging.
116 pages, Paperback
First published April 9, 2019
13 people are currently reading
251 people want to read
About the author
Lia Purpura
23 books56 followersLia Purpura (born February 22, 1964, Mineola, New York) is an American poet, writer and educator.
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
December 14, 2019
All the Fierce Tethers is wonderful: breathtakingly lyrical, brilliantly discursive, and full of curiosity, delight, and insight, just like Lia Purpura's other essay collections. Go read it, forthwith!
May 27, 2019
There is an immediate sense of Lia Purpura's poetic intellectualism presented right within the first page of "All the Fierce Tethers". She begins with an analysis of screaming: what it is and what it is not, what it consists of, its meaning or lack of it. Then Purpura goes right into Edvard Munch's "The Scream". There is much more to this first essay, but already within these two topics she uses Deconstruction as a philosophical tool and then begins to present examples of what Walter Benjamin wrote about in his brilliant, seminal essay, "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" (i.e. Edvard Munch's "The Scream" reproduced on magnets, on coffee mugs, on blankets. Where does its meaning - as a work of art - go? There is an important *lack* to be understood.)
Whether Purpura knew whether or not she was doing what I say she is doing doesn't really matter. It doesn't matter because "All the Fierce Tethers" is a very authentic style of "off-the-cuff" writing. And even here I'll borrow from the book: Purpura likes to break down phrases and sayings that many of us take for granted. "Off-the-cuff", for example, comes from the act of a presenter not being prepared for his presentation, using notes written on his cuffs to present his work. I don't actually mean it in such a way in relation to Purpura's book of essays. What I mean is that she writes in a style that is conversational, yet meditative, spontaneous yet not lacking depth or perspective. Though she uses philosophical tools, she is not writing philosophy here. She is a writer: pure and simple. It is "off-the-cuff" because her writing seems unconstrained. Her writing seems *free*.
What I like about this book is that I understand it. At least I think I do.
"Never minding makes it possible to do things like eat what you want, and talk about simple, daily things... a scream is not speech." - from "Scream (Or Never Minding)
Themes covered within "All the Fierce Tethers": screams, the staged appearance of nature photography (and what really goes on while the subjects pose and wait to pose), how to use the *right* words to describe organic visions from memory ("entry cove", "bright spun", "after a fire"), the myriad meanings of the symbol of the eagle - and asking that we let the eagle be; it does not have to mean what we've made it to mean (when in fact we should know a bit more about the animals tendencies of thievery), the murder of a girl hardly anyone knew (yet how was she still a part of your existence?), on coincidences that you dare not tell anyone because they, perhaps, are a gift only for you, the idiocy, and moreover, inadequacy of phrases we use daily to describe things like the "food chain" (if you really think about it, it isn't a chain at all - it's more like an ecosystem), the stubborn insistence of weird, gnarly trees, the use of metaphor on every level imaginable, things that don't fall into the category of beauty, why irony is awful (mostly because it's contrived), the formations of words via a study of snow and other things, murders and what they mean for people on either side of town, shadows (their appearance and disappearance)... and the last two I think are about nothing but poetry, I must read it all again.
It's about all those things, but of course, Purpura's unstained magnifying glass of a mind illuminates with a very particular generosity that no one but you can read, and no one but her can give to you. If you're feeling sad one day you might like to pick this one up. I'd like to write one like this similarly, though I'd start with "cry" rather than scream, because that may be just where I start. When someone writes a book as personal as this I'm inclined to say humanity is unworthy to read it at all. Then again, most are too distracted to think of doing anything of the kind anyway.
Whether Purpura knew whether or not she was doing what I say she is doing doesn't really matter. It doesn't matter because "All the Fierce Tethers" is a very authentic style of "off-the-cuff" writing. And even here I'll borrow from the book: Purpura likes to break down phrases and sayings that many of us take for granted. "Off-the-cuff", for example, comes from the act of a presenter not being prepared for his presentation, using notes written on his cuffs to present his work. I don't actually mean it in such a way in relation to Purpura's book of essays. What I mean is that she writes in a style that is conversational, yet meditative, spontaneous yet not lacking depth or perspective. Though she uses philosophical tools, she is not writing philosophy here. She is a writer: pure and simple. It is "off-the-cuff" because her writing seems unconstrained. Her writing seems *free*.
What I like about this book is that I understand it. At least I think I do.
"Never minding makes it possible to do things like eat what you want, and talk about simple, daily things... a scream is not speech." - from "Scream (Or Never Minding)
Themes covered within "All the Fierce Tethers": screams, the staged appearance of nature photography (and what really goes on while the subjects pose and wait to pose), how to use the *right* words to describe organic visions from memory ("entry cove", "bright spun", "after a fire"), the myriad meanings of the symbol of the eagle - and asking that we let the eagle be; it does not have to mean what we've made it to mean (when in fact we should know a bit more about the animals tendencies of thievery), the murder of a girl hardly anyone knew (yet how was she still a part of your existence?), on coincidences that you dare not tell anyone because they, perhaps, are a gift only for you, the idiocy, and moreover, inadequacy of phrases we use daily to describe things like the "food chain" (if you really think about it, it isn't a chain at all - it's more like an ecosystem), the stubborn insistence of weird, gnarly trees, the use of metaphor on every level imaginable, things that don't fall into the category of beauty, why irony is awful (mostly because it's contrived), the formations of words via a study of snow and other things, murders and what they mean for people on either side of town, shadows (their appearance and disappearance)... and the last two I think are about nothing but poetry, I must read it all again.
It's about all those things, but of course, Purpura's unstained magnifying glass of a mind illuminates with a very particular generosity that no one but you can read, and no one but her can give to you. If you're feeling sad one day you might like to pick this one up. I'd like to write one like this similarly, though I'd start with "cry" rather than scream, because that may be just where I start. When someone writes a book as personal as this I'm inclined to say humanity is unworthy to read it at all. Then again, most are too distracted to think of doing anything of the kind anyway.
May 8, 2019
All the Fierce Tethers is a breathtaking collection of personal essays by Lia Purpura. There are twenty essays that illustrate how someone capable of extraordinary insight can travel the galaxy while walking the dog.
The title essay “All the Fierce Tethers” in a few short pages takes us from the particular to the universal in magical ways. She starts by recalling how insignificant we all are in the grand scheme of things, how we live lives that are looping over and over in humdrum repetition like the lives of so many other people. He perspective changes to see how that sameness is a kind of greatness, how the humdrum anchors us to memory, history, and each other. Then she amplifies that idea to consideration of ants, hares, and the vastness of the ecosystems we are heedlessly degrading. “To understand ruin, know first what it is that’s being ruined,” she writes and asks for our investment–using the etymology of that word to ask us “to encounter the holy.”
The first essay “Never Minding” considers how often we turn away from things that make us feel bad and decide not to mind. She writes of how the ubiquity of Munch’s “The Scream” has deracinated it, sucking the life and meaning from it. When despair is a design on a mousepad or coffee mug, commodified and never-minded.
I loved All the Fierce Tethers. Lia Purpura is one of those authors enamored of words. She is one of those people who is struck by words. Take this example, “Come to be held. Hear that? Beheld?—the intensified form, the stand-back-so-as-to-see-the-light version, or angle that promises by holding a thing, I’ll be held by it, that attention swings both ways at once. And what to do with that thought?” She explores words and plays with them, she delights in metaphor but also suggests we can never see an eagle so long as we want it to mean something. We will see its meaning, not its essence.
William Blake wrote about seeing the “world in a grain of sand.” Lia Purpura does that and then she shares it with us shimmering, lambent prose. This is a book to linger over and I did. It is a book you can read aloud just to hear the music in the words. Do not rush through All the Fierce Tethers because there is magic there not to be missed.
All the Fierce Tethers at Sarabande Books
Lia Purpura author site
★★★★★
https://tonstantweaderreviews.wordpre...
The title essay “All the Fierce Tethers” in a few short pages takes us from the particular to the universal in magical ways. She starts by recalling how insignificant we all are in the grand scheme of things, how we live lives that are looping over and over in humdrum repetition like the lives of so many other people. He perspective changes to see how that sameness is a kind of greatness, how the humdrum anchors us to memory, history, and each other. Then she amplifies that idea to consideration of ants, hares, and the vastness of the ecosystems we are heedlessly degrading. “To understand ruin, know first what it is that’s being ruined,” she writes and asks for our investment–using the etymology of that word to ask us “to encounter the holy.”
The first essay “Never Minding” considers how often we turn away from things that make us feel bad and decide not to mind. She writes of how the ubiquity of Munch’s “The Scream” has deracinated it, sucking the life and meaning from it. When despair is a design on a mousepad or coffee mug, commodified and never-minded.
I loved All the Fierce Tethers. Lia Purpura is one of those authors enamored of words. She is one of those people who is struck by words. Take this example, “Come to be held. Hear that? Beheld?—the intensified form, the stand-back-so-as-to-see-the-light version, or angle that promises by holding a thing, I’ll be held by it, that attention swings both ways at once. And what to do with that thought?” She explores words and plays with them, she delights in metaphor but also suggests we can never see an eagle so long as we want it to mean something. We will see its meaning, not its essence.
William Blake wrote about seeing the “world in a grain of sand.” Lia Purpura does that and then she shares it with us shimmering, lambent prose. This is a book to linger over and I did. It is a book you can read aloud just to hear the music in the words. Do not rush through All the Fierce Tethers because there is magic there not to be missed.
All the Fierce Tethers at Sarabande Books
Lia Purpura author site
★★★★★
https://tonstantweaderreviews.wordpre...
March 14, 2019
I've been a fan of Lia Purpura's for years and even reviewed her earlier collection, On Looking, for the Kenyon Review Online, and though I don't have time right now to pen a full a review, you can look at my review of "On Looking" and you will have a good idea of what to expect. Lia Purpura looks closely at the world and what she sees is always fresh, unexpected, and necessary. https://www.kenyonreview.org/kr-onlin...
June 17, 2019
The discrete essays in All the Fierce Tethers remind me of my halcyon year between college and law school (circa 2005) where a friend and I would read one David Sedaris essay per day and laugh our butts off: savoring it, revelling in it, and holding off from rushing ahead so as not to diminish what remained. While I no longer delight in the particularized humor of David Sedaris—I had my own feelings laid bare during a Talking Simpsons podcast, where one of the hosts designated the books as appealing to “smartypants” teens and NPR old folks and no age demographic in-between—All the Fierce Tethers contains the same power and finitude. It cries out for rest between essays. “Don’t waste this,” it whispers, though there is only personal restraint to tamp the desire to race toward the finish, that shining goal of another book added to the “read” list, another review posted to the churning froth of networked and hierarchical websites. Just a vague feeling that maybe not. That perhaps the present moment presses harder than the future. Twenty essays. Seven days. I spread them out as best I could.
To not rush the structure of the page or the word choice; to tease out the content and not forget what you just read in anticipation of what you might read next. All the things that make you realize that you’re engaged with the physical act of reading and not gorging on a story built from ephemera and strung up with bits of nothing. You can see the weave, here, if you look closely enough:
To not rush the structure of the page or the word choice; to tease out the content and not forget what you just read in anticipation of what you might read next. All the things that make you realize that you’re engaged with the physical act of reading and not gorging on a story built from ephemera and strung up with bits of nothing. You can see the weave, here, if you look closely enough:
This is bird shit, rain-thinned on the sidewalk, a splotchy snow-shadow, gathering, as all this stuff is, for the eye training toward it. Offerings that come once the frame is constructed. Likenesses finding a home. Vision forming. Out in a field where I’m to meet it. Out in a field where I’m also the field. I don’t know what that moment’s thinking, it’s telling itself. Things are alive. Without me, and within. There is nothing shut up or remote, but everywhere is “cloth’d with what itself adorns.” I mean I’m getting rearranged by all the seeing and being seen.You can’t review a collection like Tethers—at least, I cannot—by piling on more words. How silly does a reference to pop-culture podcasters and a storyteller prominent a decade ago seem, when these essays drive to the heart of existence though timeless circumspection and introspection? Silly, sure, but there it is. It's what I've got to give you. How else to bridge the gap between me, you, these essays? Surely not bite off the style with a simulacrum of Tethers' effortless depth; it seems unlikely that I learn to flawlessly flow from topic to thought and back again in the space of one collection. No, we’d be better served by my wrapping out, by you picking up these essays, with us both living with them for a bit. To really linger. And then stop.
Read
November 3, 2024DNF
I couldn't do it. I honestly couldn't get through the first couple of pages. I know I should probably give it more of a chance and I have to read it for my Master's. But honestly it seems like the author is trying really hard to sound philosophical and spiritual. But it seems like there's way too much going on and I don't get the point of each essay. A beginning of an essay is to explain the thesis of the essay. The author didn't do that and I have no clue what it is about. I just can't do it. I'm gonna figure out a way to write notes for this and drop the book. I just cannot do it.
I couldn't do it. I honestly couldn't get through the first couple of pages. I know I should probably give it more of a chance and I have to read it for my Master's. But honestly it seems like the author is trying really hard to sound philosophical and spiritual. But it seems like there's way too much going on and I don't get the point of each essay. A beginning of an essay is to explain the thesis of the essay. The author didn't do that and I have no clue what it is about. I just can't do it. I'm gonna figure out a way to write notes for this and drop the book. I just cannot do it.
Read
May 11, 2019This is an essay collection that reads like poetry. It’s beautiful and will make you look at the environment around you differently. The pieces are largely about nature and the experience of being in the world, of trying to live fully and truly see what is happening around you. It’s a short book, barely over 100 pages, but it’s worth reading slowly and savoring. In fact, it asks you to slow down and take your time with it, because the writing is so rich. If you are an essay reader, a poetry reader, or someone who likes nature writing of any kind, I think you will enjoy this.
August 27, 2019
If I could rate this higher, I would. The essay's in this collection allow me to look at the world in a new, exciting, microscopic way. After reading Purpura, I am more excited to live - I want to look; look closely. All is not as it seems. It is way more interesting than appearances first suggest. What a generous writer to share this way of being in the world with us.
September 21, 2019
3 3/4 stars
October 27, 2022
Creative nonfiction essays, lyric, that are to my reading as close to perfect as any I'd want to read.
Purpura plays with words and has a very agile mind that takes off down alleyways and around corners and still brings the reader along without losing her. That sounds so mundane.
You must be willing to play with the lyric mind that wanders but isn't lost. I'm obsessive about good lyric essays and yet have no good way of explaining why without taking the essay apart as a writer instead of as a reader. If you find traditional essays boring (I do, and Joan Didion loses me every single time for example - even though some claim her writing is lyric - not like this it isn't), take a run at reading Lia Purpura. I have a lot of new favorites this year as a result of hunting down the lyric anywhere I can find it, and to date, she is far and away my favorite.
Try her out at the library (I did at first). You may find you need her in your personal library (I did that too).
I also just finished "Rough Likeness," earlier work, which is easier for some reason for me to pick apart (perhaps because it isn't quite as fluent as "All The Fierce Tethers"). Her use of way too many words that I had to look up tell me she hadn't quite got the hang of bringing her readers along yet. It will be a star4 for that reason, but if you're a writer trying to figure out how she's writing this work, "Rough LIkeness" is the one you want.
Purpura plays with words and has a very agile mind that takes off down alleyways and around corners and still brings the reader along without losing her. That sounds so mundane.
You must be willing to play with the lyric mind that wanders but isn't lost. I'm obsessive about good lyric essays and yet have no good way of explaining why without taking the essay apart as a writer instead of as a reader. If you find traditional essays boring (I do, and Joan Didion loses me every single time for example - even though some claim her writing is lyric - not like this it isn't), take a run at reading Lia Purpura. I have a lot of new favorites this year as a result of hunting down the lyric anywhere I can find it, and to date, she is far and away my favorite.
Try her out at the library (I did at first). You may find you need her in your personal library (I did that too).
I also just finished "Rough Likeness," earlier work, which is easier for some reason for me to pick apart (perhaps because it isn't quite as fluent as "All The Fierce Tethers"). Her use of way too many words that I had to look up tell me she hadn't quite got the hang of bringing her readers along yet. It will be a star4 for that reason, but if you're a writer trying to figure out how she's writing this work, "Rough LIkeness" is the one you want.
July 10, 2020
Lia is a master of noticing, a skill that is often taken for granted in modern times. While I initially came to know and love her work in the form of poetry, she brings the same attention to detail and praise of beauty to her essays. After reading this book, I felt a new level of appreciation for the silent beauty and horror of modern life. Highly recommended.
July 26, 2021
I really enjoyed this collection of essays. Some essays, I enjoyed more than others and some I felt more connected to, but all the essays were insightful. All of the essays were also beautifully written and as a reader, you could definitely tell that Purpura is a poet. I definitely want to read her poems and other essays after reading this collection.
January 22, 2025
lia purpura is probably the best lyrical essayist alive. every word is alive and precise, Romantically precious. it's reminiscent of mary oliver in its attentiveness to the world and the mind, but purpura's writing is weirder and wider. i feel a unique kinship with her, like if we met we would understand each other immediately. TLDR go read this book if you like beautiful writing
March 24, 2021
Una pensaría que hablar de ecocidio desde el ensayo literario sería demasiado cliché o condescendiente pero wooow este libro lo logra desde la intimidad sin dejar de ser súper fuerte, sincero y sentirse tan necesario.
April 10, 2019
Here's my review from The Woven Tale Press:
https://www.thewoventalepress.net/201...
https://www.thewoventalepress.net/201...
April 22, 2019
This collection was challenging and thought provoking, Simple subjects looked at deeply and enjoyed.
October 1, 2019
I like the gutsy free association style of this work. It inspired me to write an essay that mashes up quotes, memories, image, and analysis. I love seeing more and more hybrid work like this.
October 16, 2019
My first Lia Purpura did not disappoint. Some really astonishing technical work on her images has stuck with me. Will read more work by her for sure.
May 26, 2022
I liked the different settings and how it made me question a few things about stuff that I really did not pay attention to in the past. It also gave me a glimpse of how to view things.
August 29, 2025
Lia Purpura cracks words open like they're geodes. I loved this essay collection.
March 4, 2025
Intensely specific and very tightly crafted. Sometimes the writer gets a little far ahead of the reader, making it a bit difficult to keep up. But worth following the winding routes of thought.
December 21, 2022
Out of eight essays if say it was 50/50. Hit or miss with topics. If you enjoy essays try this.
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews