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And Her Soul Out Of Nothing
Both contemporary and other-worldly, Davis's lyrical poetry is a fearless expression of the spirit which defines the very essence of our beings.
112 pages, Paperback
First published October 15, 1997
About the author
Olena Kalytiak Davis
7 books82 followersAmerican poet Olena Kalytiak Davis was born in 1963. She is the author of two poetry collections: 'And Her Soul Out Of Nothing' and 'Shattered Sonnets, Love Cards, And Other Off-And-Back Handed Importunities.'
Her first book won the Brittingham Prize. Her other honors include a a 1996 Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers' Award in poetry, and a 2004 Guggenheim Fellowship in poetry.
Her poems have been published in literary journals and magazines including AGNI, Field, Indiana Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, New England Review, Poetry Northwest, Post Road Magazine and in anthologies including 'Best American Poetry 1995' and 'Legitimate Dangers: American Poets of the New Century.'
She is a first-generation Ukrainian-American, and grew up in Detroit, Michigan. She has since lived in Chicago, Lviv, Paris, Prague, San Francisco and the Yup'ik community of Bethel, Alaska, and she currently lives in Anchorage, Alaska.
She was educated at Wayne State University, University of Michigan Law School, and Vermont College of Fine Arts. She is also a contributing editor at 'The Alaska Quarterly Review.'
Her first book won the Brittingham Prize. Her other honors include a a 1996 Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers' Award in poetry, and a 2004 Guggenheim Fellowship in poetry.
Her poems have been published in literary journals and magazines including AGNI, Field, Indiana Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, New England Review, Poetry Northwest, Post Road Magazine and in anthologies including 'Best American Poetry 1995' and 'Legitimate Dangers: American Poets of the New Century.'
She is a first-generation Ukrainian-American, and grew up in Detroit, Michigan. She has since lived in Chicago, Lviv, Paris, Prague, San Francisco and the Yup'ik community of Bethel, Alaska, and she currently lives in Anchorage, Alaska.
She was educated at Wayne State University, University of Michigan Law School, and Vermont College of Fine Arts. She is also a contributing editor at 'The Alaska Quarterly Review.'
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 65 reviews
November 15, 2009
I've acquired a dozen or so poetry books in the last two weeks and the poems contained in And Her Soul Out Of Nothing by Olena Kalytiak Davis are the best. She won the 1997 Brittingham Prize in Poetry for this collection. Here is a sample of her work - The title is "It's Shaped Like A Fork."
This house is a mess. Full
of solid notions
that keep turning into objects:
this simple sadness
that's shaped like a fork
and the vague fear that crusts
these dishes. I'm vacuuming
over this grass-like pain.
Emptying pockets for the wash:
such a burden: not just wrappers
but keys and mints, those sticky
and sorrow-coated stones.
And this larger grief
that always needs to be folded.
All day I've been chewing
on my own acrid gloom,
trying to put away
the things you keep carrying
home from work: the possessions
of children and women
and drunks, stolen or cheated,
the tasteless unhappiness
of others into jars labeled:
Heartbreak, Injustice,
Just-Plain-Bad-Fucking-Luck.
This house is a mess. Full
of solid notions
that keep turning into objects:
this simple sadness
that's shaped like a fork
and the vague fear that crusts
these dishes. I'm vacuuming
over this grass-like pain.
Emptying pockets for the wash:
such a burden: not just wrappers
but keys and mints, those sticky
and sorrow-coated stones.
And this larger grief
that always needs to be folded.
All day I've been chewing
on my own acrid gloom,
trying to put away
the things you keep carrying
home from work: the possessions
of children and women
and drunks, stolen or cheated,
the tasteless unhappiness
of others into jars labeled:
Heartbreak, Injustice,
Just-Plain-Bad-Fucking-Luck.
August 13, 2008
When I first read Davis' poetry, it felt oddly familiar. Then I realized, it was as if I had written these poems myself. I do not claim to be nearly half as talented as Davis, but her haunting, spot-on lyricism is something to which I aspire.
From "The Outline I Inhabit". "In the ghost-making fog the phone rings./ Sure, I'm unnerved, but I listen./I strain for meaning. So when I hang up/everything's sore. When I hang up/I have to write down everything/that hurts./Imagine what Pain says:/"I'll keep in touch."
From "The Outline I Inhabit". "In the ghost-making fog the phone rings./ Sure, I'm unnerved, but I listen./I strain for meaning. So when I hang up/everything's sore. When I hang up/I have to write down everything/that hurts./Imagine what Pain says:/"I'll keep in touch."
October 26, 2011
Feels a bit like Plath (before she delved all the way down) with a tinge of Tsvetaeva and a whole lot of modern, urban feel to it. She describes herself as having "hipbones/instead of children" and writes poems about puking in parking lots, Wal-Mart workers, her mother's death. Some are better than others, of course. And one is excellent.
"The Scaffolding Inside You" is one of those poems that most writers never manage, and few manage more than one. Relentless, pitiless, perfectly pared down. It felt so true that as I read it, I inadvertently memorized it, because every phrase felt right. For that poem alone (and perhaps "Father's Famous Devastation") I recommend finding this book.
"The Scaffolding Inside You" is one of those poems that most writers never manage, and few manage more than one. Relentless, pitiless, perfectly pared down. It felt so true that as I read it, I inadvertently memorized it, because every phrase felt right. For that poem alone (and perhaps "Father's Famous Devastation") I recommend finding this book.
January 30, 2014
We sat around trying to name
the things that do not exist.
the things that do not exist.
September 25, 2020
The Panic of Birds
The moon is sick
of pulling at the river, and the river
fed up with swallowing the rain,
So, in my lukewarm coffee, in the bathroom
mirror, there’s a restlessness
as black as a raven.
Landing heavily on the quiet lines of this house.
Again, the sun takes cover
and the morning is dead
tired of itself, already, it’s pelting and windy
as I lean into the pane
that proves this world is a cold smooth place.
Wind against window—let the words fight it out—
as I try to remember: What is it
that’s so late in coming? What was it
I understood so well last night, so well it kissed me,
sweetly on the forehead?
Wind against window and my late flowering brain,
heavy, gone to seed. Pacing
from room to room and in each window
a different version of a framed woman
unable to rest, set against a sky
full of beating wings and abandoned
directions. Her five chambered heart
filling with the panic of birds, asking: What?
What if not this?
~ Olena Kalytiak Davis
The moon is sick
of pulling at the river, and the river
fed up with swallowing the rain,
So, in my lukewarm coffee, in the bathroom
mirror, there’s a restlessness
as black as a raven.
Landing heavily on the quiet lines of this house.
Again, the sun takes cover
and the morning is dead
tired of itself, already, it’s pelting and windy
as I lean into the pane
that proves this world is a cold smooth place.
Wind against window—let the words fight it out—
as I try to remember: What is it
that’s so late in coming? What was it
I understood so well last night, so well it kissed me,
sweetly on the forehead?
Wind against window and my late flowering brain,
heavy, gone to seed. Pacing
from room to room and in each window
a different version of a framed woman
unable to rest, set against a sky
full of beating wings and abandoned
directions. Her five chambered heart
filling with the panic of birds, asking: What?
What if not this?
~ Olena Kalytiak Davis
February 13, 2009
that isn't fireweed
that's just someone thawing
somebody else's life with a blowtorch
that's just someone thawing
somebody else's life with a blowtorch
December 4, 2007
Fabulous. One of the most amazing poetry experiences I've ever had. It won the Brittingham Prize in 1997, and might as well continue to win every year.
March 25, 2014
I'm not actually finished reading this book. I can actually never stop reading this book or give it back to my sister. I love it too much.
Ok, the title and the cover suck. But the poems are painfully good. I want to memorize them and never shower again and mutter them to people I pass on the street.
Ok, the title and the cover suck. But the poems are painfully good. I want to memorize them and never shower again and mutter them to people I pass on the street.
February 15, 2013
lines taken out of context:
When it's this windy doesn't it seem impossible
to grow old?
from "Who Cares About Aperture"
I can't pretend to understand all of it but I want to, so that's something. I like a lot of these. Especially "I've Always Been One To Delight In The Misfortune Of Others."
When it's this windy doesn't it seem impossible
to grow old?
from "Who Cares About Aperture"
I can't pretend to understand all of it but I want to, so that's something. I like a lot of these. Especially "I've Always Been One To Delight In The Misfortune Of Others."
February 21, 2008
Read on Calhoun street senior year of college with Jimmy and Misty saying oh yeah I like that line about the punk rock and the flower with the white body. We met Davis and boy was she nutty and Alaskan.
January 21, 2011
On this snow day—and as a belated Happy New Year post—here are my 10 best Library reads of 2010, with thanks to the great Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh and its staff:
This first collection—winner of the 1997 Brittingham Prize in Poetry—is that rare thing for a book of poetry, a page-turner. From “Like Working at Wal Mart”: “She heard sad things all day/long in the usual turning/of phrases until it felt/everything she was touching/was just a neatly packaged beauty/supply or a deeply discounted/drug; what everyone needed: detergents/ and cosmetics; she scanned shells/for shotguns and rounds for 22s;/and while handling cheap bras/and polyester/socks she began to feel the flimsiness/of the lives of others…”
This first collection—winner of the 1997 Brittingham Prize in Poetry—is that rare thing for a book of poetry, a page-turner. From “Like Working at Wal Mart”: “She heard sad things all day/long in the usual turning/of phrases until it felt/everything she was touching/was just a neatly packaged beauty/supply or a deeply discounted/drug; what everyone needed: detergents/ and cosmetics; she scanned shells/for shotguns and rounds for 22s;/and while handling cheap bras/and polyester/socks she began to feel the flimsiness/of the lives of others…”
October 18, 2007
I LOVE this book. All my poetry friends know how much I love this book. I can read it over and over again and still cry every time I read the poem "the panic of birds" (and friends) because the language possesses (as does the language of the whole book) this amazing balance of despair and interestingness, plus the music of the whole thing. Omfg. As long as I have Olena Kalytiak Davis and Laurel Snyder, everything will be okay.
July 14, 2008
Olena Kalytiak Davis has the enviable ability to take incidents, fragments, and moments from the realm of the literal and quotidian to the transformative, often before you have even realized it. Although a few of the poems didn't reach me, the majority created that irresistible mood of longing, the soul-deep inarticulate kind that she manages quite beautifully to articulate.
January 8, 2008
No date because I haven't stopped reading this book since I was first introduced to it in 2002. A book of lyric poems set vaguely in Alaska-- that capture the feeling of long, long winters where the sky and the ground are exactly the same shade of white (yet the author can tell them apart).
July 11, 2014
a poetry book i feel i can go back to and fall in love with all over again:
"the fevered understanding offered from the barstool,
from this side of the confessional's grate. The ardent
I'm-so-sorry, the willing I-hear-you"
"the fevered understanding offered from the barstool,
from this side of the confessional's grate. The ardent
I'm-so-sorry, the willing I-hear-you"
June 11, 2007
I am always reading this book.
licking the salt from the wound.
licking the salt from the wound.
April 24, 2008
I took my time with these poems. They are beautiful! Along the lines of Rilke and Carver. The paper that started as a bookmark has been reduced to a nub by all the slivers torn off to mark pages.
June 28, 2008
Davis combines lyric and narrative beautifully.
August 17, 2011
This is one of my favorites. I have read it straight through more times than I can count, but I find myself reading and re-reading anyway.
October 22, 2013
Loved these poems in all their brilliant complexity, especially "The Gauze of Flowers, A Love Poem".
September 3, 2015
Quite good in spots. Confessional to a tee.
July 6, 2009
One of my favorite poetry collections!!
May 12, 2026
Lately, I am capable only of small things.
Is it enough
to feel the heart swimming?
Jim is fine.
Our first garden is thick with spinach
and white radish. Strangely,
it is summer
but also winter and fall.
In response to your asking:
I fill the hours,
then lick them shut.
Today, not a single word, but the birds
quietly nodding
as if someone had suggested
moving on.
What was that perfect thing
some one who once believed in god said?
Please, don't misunderstand:
We still suffer, but we are
happy.
Is it enough
to feel the heart swimming?
Jim is fine.
Our first garden is thick with spinach
and white radish. Strangely,
it is summer
but also winter and fall.
In response to your asking:
I fill the hours,
then lick them shut.
Today, not a single word, but the birds
quietly nodding
as if someone had suggested
moving on.
What was that perfect thing
some one who once believed in god said?
Please, don't misunderstand:
We still suffer, but we are
happy.
July 20, 2020
"What I want to know about is the frenzy."
(I'm Only Now Beginning to Answer Your Letter, pg. 7)
With these words, we're off on a lyrical journey through Davis' melancholia, grappling with sadness and soul in equal measure. It's genuinely one of the best collections I've ever read. After I'm through typing this, I'm off to order her other books.
(I'm Only Now Beginning to Answer Your Letter, pg. 7)
With these words, we're off on a lyrical journey through Davis' melancholia, grappling with sadness and soul in equal measure. It's genuinely one of the best collections I've ever read. After I'm through typing this, I'm off to order her other books.
February 9, 2024
An immensely beautiful collection. An inspiration for me to just let what is in me be said without hesitation. I know I’ll be coming back to Olena Kalytiak Davis in the future.
September 11, 2025
I kept thinking “just one more then I’ll go to bed.” One more turned to two more. Two more turned into another five and five turned into the rest.
Dean Young called it “chipped singing,” and I couldn’t agree more.
Dean Young called it “chipped singing,” and I couldn’t agree more.
August 8, 2018
If this isn't one of the most beautiful things I've read, I don't know what is.
February 29, 2016
I own well over 500 books of poetry and this book consistently stays in my top ten. Ms. Davis is uniquely herself, unlike any other poet I've read. I have so much of this book underlined and highlighted, I had to buy a second copy. It's the first book that pops into my brain when someone asks me to recommend a current poet. If you love good, beautiful, unique poetry, this one's for you. One of my favorite poems in this book:
THE PANIC OF BIRDS
By Olena Kalytiak Davis
The moon is sick
of pulling at the river, and the river
fed up with swallowing the rain,
So, in my lukewarm coffee, in the bathroom
mirror, there's a restlessness
as black as a raven.
Landing heavily on the quiet lines of this house.
Again, the sun takes cover
and the morning is dead
tired of itself, already, it's pelting and windy
as I lean into the pane
that proves this world is a cold smooth place.
Wind against window---let the words fight it out---
as I try to remember: What is it
that's so late in coming? What was it
I understood so well last night, so well it kissed me,
sweetly on the forehead?
Wind against window and my late flowering brain,
heavy, gone to seed. Pacing
from room to room and in each window
a different version of a framed woman
unable to rest, set against a sky
full of beating wings and abandoned
directions. Her five chambered heart
filling with the panic of birds, asking: What?
What if not this?
-------------------------
THE PANIC OF BIRDS
By Olena Kalytiak Davis
The moon is sick
of pulling at the river, and the river
fed up with swallowing the rain,
So, in my lukewarm coffee, in the bathroom
mirror, there's a restlessness
as black as a raven.
Landing heavily on the quiet lines of this house.
Again, the sun takes cover
and the morning is dead
tired of itself, already, it's pelting and windy
as I lean into the pane
that proves this world is a cold smooth place.
Wind against window---let the words fight it out---
as I try to remember: What is it
that's so late in coming? What was it
I understood so well last night, so well it kissed me,
sweetly on the forehead?
Wind against window and my late flowering brain,
heavy, gone to seed. Pacing
from room to room and in each window
a different version of a framed woman
unable to rest, set against a sky
full of beating wings and abandoned
directions. Her five chambered heart
filling with the panic of birds, asking: What?
What if not this?
-------------------------
December 20, 2014
This is one of those rare books of poetry where I can't wait to go back and re-read and figure out why it got under my skin the way it did. The first two sections were slow and and I was impatient; when I read the last section, I was blown away--the phrasing, the emotional impact, the ability to take me someplace else, were potent. Afterward, the first parts haunted me. There's a way that the slower, less direct earlier sections set the stage for the final section in a way that I want to take time to consider more carefully--and I'm looking forward to that process. Great read.
June 22, 2014
AMAZING.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 65 reviews