Intaglio

Wick First Book

by Ariana-Sophia M. Kartsonis

Winner of the 2005 Stan and Tom Wick Poetry Prize “The image evoked by Intaglio, this first collection by Ariana-Sophia Kartsonis, rests on a paradox, one perhaps central to the poetic impulse that design can be shaped by what is cut away, by the loss that surrounds it, so that what is missing creates the negative space which raises the figure in relief, presents it to sight, and touch. a word whose two meanings―one artistic and material, the other emotional and intangible, together suggest how art engraves meaning.”― Eleanor Wilner, Judge “Intaglio is a remarkable new book by a haunting new voice. Freighted with music and beauty, even the simplest lines are ‘There is this heron in a hush of lift / and my eyes are filled with it.’ In the lift , there is also a lyric pressure, an inner intensity which evokes the best kind of ‘Let Nothing be that / which bitch-slaps the heart, / for the heart, like a hospital, / is a many-winged thing.’ Kartsonis has offered up a vision both playful and painful, all of it lit with the eerie glow of her brilliance. What a lovely and terrifying offering. What an extraordinary introduction to this new poet.” ―Laura Kasischke “With Intaglio, Kartsonis carefully incises the sensuality of history onto the fleet attentions of the day. And onto loss, onto bereavement, she incises the incredible, now credible, luxuries of everlastingness. This is a formidable debut, lavish in its mind and loves.” ―Donald Revell

Genres: Poetry

Paperback

First published September 1, 2006

Reviews

[Steven Godin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Light up. Your house or your life,
your photographs, no matter. Teach your baby
to wave goodbye. In the absence of your own
teach someone else's baby a cheap farewell
with one sweep nearly like erasing a board.
Now you can start. Write I am nothing
if not melancholy one hundred times
in cursive. From that imbroglio of text
weave something: hanging rope or safety net.
A walk-down, a levy up, a glissando
or a hopscotch all diagonal, until you see
in your melancholy, Baby, how funny
you are, all squinched up and sorrowful;
until you see that's you there sniffing the new blue roses
genetically engineered to smell like sky and grief
and August rivering into a fall
feeling too broken to play. Nevermind,
nevermind—the blues are meant for the broken.

[Kelcey · Rating 5 out of 5]

A gorgeous, lush, complex and brilliant book. Playful but dead serious about matters of the heart. I love it.

And to respond to Matt's comment about using it in the classroom: I assigned this in an intro to creative writing course and it was in many ways over their heads but it had enough they could latch onto (crayon drawings of broken homes, valentines, grandmothers--and, formally, prose, letters, newspaper articles), so it worked out.

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm teaching this book for the next three weeks or so, trying to puzzle out ways to convey what I really like about this book (the density of the imagery, the allusiveness) without being too harsh about the things I'm not crazy about (the woman-in-love tragic themes, the penny-ante exoticism).

The problem is that the elements I don't like are, I think, easier to identify.

This is a really good book; I'm just struggling with it as a teachable text. It's well worth a read.

[Gary McDowell · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some really GREAT poems. Not sure why I wasn't as into it as I should have been. Her prose poems won the Fineline Competition at Mid-American Review last year... those poems were amazing!!

[Lesley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gorgeous. Dense. Dark but dappled with lemony light. An auspicious debut by a voluminous mind.