Carol Muske-Dukes

"A new collection from a poet whose work "has long been essential reading" (Jorie Graham) Carol Muske-Dukes has won acclaim for poetry that marries sophisticated intelligence, emotional resonance, and lyrical intensity. The poems in her new collection, Blue Rose, navigate around the idea of the unattainable--the elusive nature of poetry, of knowledge, of the fact that we know so little of the lives of others, of the world in which we live. Some poems respond to matters of women, birth, and the struggle for reproductive rights, while others draw inspiration from the lives of women who persisted outside of convention, in poetry, art, science: the painter Paula Modersohn-Becker; the pioneering molecular biologist Rosalyn Franklin, best known for her role in the discovery of DNA; and the American poet and writer Ina Coolbrith, California's first poet laureate"--

"A new collection of poetry by Carol Muske-Dukes"--

Blue rose

Bob Holman

A collaborative poem about America, from fifty-four of our best poets Crossing State Lines: An American Renga is a poetic relay race across the continent: fifty-four poets responding to ideas of America--and to each other. This is a collaborative journey of impressions--from the election and inauguration of President Obama, through foreclosures, job losses, chords of country music, and bombs in Baghdad, to a poet-soldier's rifle-sight in Afghanistan. The renga itself, in the ancient tradition of Japanese linked verse, provides the form of this historic conversation among the poets, as they meditate, within ten lines, on a moment in America. Crossing State Lines begins with Robert Pinsky's recounting of a line of poetry by Lincoln as fall deepens and "maples / kindle in the East," and ends some five hundred lines later, with Robert Hass's "greeny April" on the Pacific coast. All proceeds from sales go to America: Now and Here.

An American Renga

Crossing State Lines

Dear Digby

From the author of Dear Digby--a tragicomic tour de force. A brilliant chemist walks the tightrope between genius and madness, as she becomes obsessed with solving the equations in her Theory of Everything. A prescient novel for the 1990s.--New York Newsday.

Saving St. Germ

Simone Muench

Winner of the 2004 Kathryn A. Morton Prize in Poetry, selected by Carol Muske-Dukes

Lampblack & Ash

A collection of poetry by the author of Life After Death is inspired by the unexpected death of the poet's husband and journey through the grieving process, exploring such themes as love, marriage, grief, and the fragility of life itself. Reprint.

Poems

Sparrow

Assesses the state of women's poetry today while celebrating its intrinsic diversity

Truth, Autobiography, and the Shape of the Self

Women and Poetry

Consumed by her pursuit of a Theory of Everything, a brilliant California scientist struggles to deal with life in and outside the lab Doctor Esme Charbonneau Tallich’s passion is cosmology, the science of the origin of the universe; specifically, she is searching for a TOE, or a Theory of Everything. Esme is a feminist maverick, a rogue thinker. Hired as a professor of molecular biology at the University of Greater California, she prefers the “bench science” of organic chemistry at one extreme and “walking out into space” at the other. Her marriage to a TV director and aspiring stand-up comedian is rocky. Esme’s five-year-old daughter, Ollie, the sun in her galaxy, seems an enigma. Too readily diagnosed by professionals as “challenged,” even possibly autistic, she is, like Esme, a renegade thinker and creative mind. Her use of language is poetic, not deficit driven or conventional. As her marriage dissolves, Esme’s struggle to maintain custody of Ollie and autonomy for herself and her work is set against the backdrop of the beckoning cosmos. Her tantalizing closeness to discovery of a grand unified theory—as psychiatric professionals, lawyers, and Esme’s estranged husband also close in on Ollie, seeking to medicate and restructure her—heightens tension while also offering hope. The discovery that Esme seeks is twofold: enlightenment and equilibrium in the troubled universes of her personal and professional lives. Saving St. Germ is a provocative, dramatic look at a single mother’s life at the edge of the universe—and the center of the human heart.

A Novel

Young, newlywed, dedicated poet Holly Mattox hopes to share her passion for literature and social justice by teaching a poetry workshop at the Women's House of Detention on Rikers Island, where she meets a young woman who claims to be capable of "channeli

Channeling Mark Twain

A vibrant and insightful essay collection about life as a poet in Southern California Poetry and Hollywood may not seem compatible in anyone’s book. But acclaimed poet, novelist, and critic Carol Muske-Dukes finds common ground for both in meditations on movie sets and metaphors, on the big screen and the luminous focus of a haiku. I Married the Icepick Killer offers the reader ways to reimagine the Imagination itself. Former California Poet Laureate Muske-Dukes explores Southern California’s unexpected poetry, from Emily Dickinson on freeway billboards to poet-script doctors rewriting action-flick dialogue. Moving personal essays recount the story of Muske-Dukes’s romance with her late husband, actor David Coleman Dukes, whom she met in Italy and relocated with in Los Angeles. Muske-Dukes sharpens her astute gaze as she addresses contradictions and convergences between belle lettres and the ever-surprising City of Angels. This ebook was originally published as Married to the Icepick Killer.

A Poet in Hollywood

I Married the Icepick Killer

A new collection of emotionally rich, issue-oriented poems from an award-winning poet whose work “has long been essential reading” (Jorie Graham) Carol Muske-Dukes has won acclaim for poetry that marries sophisticated intelligence, emotional resonance, and lyrical intensity. The poems in her new collection, Blue Rose, navigate around the idea of the unattainable – the elusive nature of poetry, of knowledge, of the fact that we know so little of the lives of others, of the world in which we live. Some poems respond to matters of women, birth, and the struggle for reproductive rights, or to issues like gun control and climate change, while others draw inspiration from the lives of women who persisted outside of convention, in poetry, art, science: the painter Paula Modersohn-Becker, the scientist and X-ray crystallographer Rosalind Franklin, and the Californian poet and writer Ina Coolbrith, the first poet laureate ever appointed in America.

Carol Muske-Dukes

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