Housekeeping in a Dream

by Laura Kasischke

Book by

Genres: Poetry

80 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 1995

About the author

Laura Kasischke is an American fiction writer and American poet with poetry awards and multiple well reviewed works of fiction. Her work has received the Juniper Prize, the Alice Fay di Castagnola Award from the Poetry Society of America, the Pushcart Prize, the Elmer Holmes Bobst Award for Emerging Writers, and the Beatrice Hawley Award. She is the recipient of two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, as well as several Pushcart Prizes.

Her novel The Life Before Her Eyes is the basis for the film of the same name, directed by Vadim Perelman, and starring Uma Thurman and Evan Rachel Wood. Kasischke's work is particularly well-received in France, where she is widely read in translation. Her novel A moi pour toujours (Be Mine) was published by Christian Bourgois, and was a national best seller.

Kasischke attended the University of Michigan and Columbia University. She is also currently a Professor of English Language and of the Residential College at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan. She lives in Chelsea, Michigan, with her husband and son.

Reviews

[Catherine · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book of poetry was amazing. I borrowed it from the library, and I'm about to purchase it for my collection. It's a cacophony of images. "Murdered Girls" was my favorite. I am without words. Read it.

[Terry · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favorite book of poems by a contemporary author. Great work.

[Andrea Janov · Rating 4 out of 5]

These poems are grounded in reality yet with a precise attention to language. Kasischke raises the ordinary, the mundane, the dark, the asinine to poetry.

[Patricia Murphy · Rating 5 out of 5]

These are such raw, image-filled, explosions of language. They embody what poems should be: all innuendo and grace.

she died young and made
a horrible corpse.

The sky is a piece of mind

who's to say a clown couldn't sire
a human child among us
like a god.

pom-poms in the big
vinegar-breath of gym

There is no alphabet for that

a bit
embarrassed about my gills

six sleeping pills I couldn't slip
into sleep's white bag.

[D'Anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of Laura Kasischke's best books of poetry (and I've read them all and love them all). The fact that this is out of print is criminal. If you ever spy a reasonably priced used copy I urge you to snap it up.

[Michelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Man, what a disappointment. This collection's opener, "Fatima," is one of my favorite poems of all time. The rest of the collection is a scattered, disparate mess with a few flashes of brilliance amid the muck.

[hh · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5

great balance