No Starling: Poems(Pacific Northwest Poetry SeriesPacific Northwest Poetry SeriesPacific Northwest Poetry SeriesPacific Northwest Poetry SeriesPacific Northwest Poetry)

The new century peeled me bone bare like a song inside a warbler - that bird, people, who knows not to go where the sky's stopped. Over the years, Nance Van Winckel's extraordinarily precise and energetic voice has built upon its strengths. Unpredictable, wry, always provocative, displaying a sure and startling command of images and ideas, her poems make every gesture of language count. In No Starling, Van Winckel accomplishes what has proven to be so difficult for poets across time: a deeply satisfying balance of the spiritual and political. Although richly peopled with figures from this and parallel worlds - Simone Weil, Verlaine, Nabokov, Eurydice, "the new boys" working in the morgue, and others - No Starling moves beyond a reliance on the dramatic resonance of individual characters. Its vision is deeper, its focus both singular and communal: the self on its journey through the world ("Mouth, mouth: my light / and my exit. Let nothing / block the route"), and our responsibilities as a people for the precarious state of that world. Slate My too-sharp lefts kept making the bundle in back sluice right. I was driving with the dead Nance in the truck bed. The gas gauge didn't work so there was an added worry of running out of juice. Her word. Her word one windy evening with the carpets stripped from a floor, which surprised us as stone - slate from the quarry we were headed to now, but Let's first have us some juice, she'd said, then, barefoot on bare slate. The truck-bedded Nance, wrapped in her winding sheet, thuds left, clunks right. I'm sorry about my driving, sorry about the million lovely pine moths mottled on my windshield. Thank God, here's the quarry, and there's the high ledge, where, as a girl long ago, she'd stepped bravely from the white towel and stared down. Then she'd held her nose and leapt out into it - this same cool and radiant air.

Table of Contents:
I / Doorman Slate Waking, Working Mister We Called Goodgye, but She Was Already Gone Agape Black Stitches, Black Knots Doorman The New Boys Will Never Love You In the New Boy's In-Basket All Asides Aside White Marginalia Errata RE: The Two New Boys The Rattled Hymn of the Republic II / Middle, Nowhere Before There Was a Road (On the Way to Wilburville) Middle, Nowhere Seme and Semaphore I Am on a Break Retrograde: Echoes from Earlier Chapters Passing Through the Shadows of Great Buildings The Usual When the Van Broke Down III /Threshold Reentry White Brides, White Mistresses Almost an End of Absinthe Verlaine in Prison Simone Weil at the Renault Factory (1935) At Some Point the River Always Veers Away from the Road The Winter Cow Eurydice Our Ladies of Elsewhere You People IV / We Fall in Behind We Fall in Behind Fuck It Notes Upriver: Distinctions of Never and Ever The Ones You Love Are Cold Let Me Remind You You Are Still Under Oath I Talk to the Bread, I Chat with the Dough Breaking Only Little Laws Indiscriminate Kisses Leastways Adieu Hand-Embroidered Mourning Piece for Clara Elisabeth Kriebel, 1779 Bid Me Be the Bird Acknowledgments About the Poet

About the Author :
Nance Van Winckel teaches in the graduate creative writing programs at Eastern Washington University and Vermont College. She is the author of four books of poetry and three collections of short stories. Her numerous awards include two National Endowment for the Arts Poetry Fellowships, a Pushcart Prize, two Washington State Artist Trust Awards, and Poetry Magazine's Friends of Literature Award. After a Spell won the Washington State Governor's Award for Poetry.SlateMy too-sharp lefts kept making the bundle in backsluice right. I was driving with the dead Nancein the truck bed. The gas gauge didn't workso there was an added worry of runningout of juice. Her word. Her word onewindy evening with the carpetsstripped from a floor, whichsurprised us as stone - slatefrom the quarry we wereheaded to now, but Let's first have ussome juice, she'd said, then, barefoot on bare slate.The truck-bedded Nance, wrapped in her winding sheet,thuds left, clunks right. I'm sorry about my driving,sorry about the million lovely pine moths mottledon my windshield. Thank God, here's the quarry,and there's the high ledge, where, as a girl longago, she'd stepped bravely from the whitetowel and stared down. Then she'd held her noseand leapt out into it - this same cool and radiant air.

Review :
"No Starling touches upon spiritual and political issues alike, signing aloud in a crystal clear voices that deserves to be heard." (Midwest Book Review)