Haven’t we all been told how beauty is thin as truth? And don’t we believe and disbelieve this “lie we’d carve and starve for. / We’d suck it till the juice ran down our arms”? Skin compels us, repels us. Beauty may be only skin deep, a fine covering—sensuous, at times Translatorlucent, almost Translatorparent, and yet so obdurate. Skin insulates, guarding its vital organs just beneath this surface that teases us to peek, to try to penetrate. We call this desire by many names, the best of which is love. April Lindner’s sensuously orchestrated collection of poems conveys the beauty and truth of love, how we know it to be paradoxical, obsessive, fearful, rapacious, holy. —Robert Fink, from the Introduction byduction
Acknowledgments |
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Introduction |
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A Brief Primer of Worries |
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Letter from Gustav Mahler |
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On Leafing Through a Catalogue of William Bailey's Paintings |
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Portrait in Negative Space |
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April Lindner is also the author of the poetry collection This Bed Our Bodies Shaped and two novels, Jane, a modernization of Jane Eyre, and Catherine, a modernization of Wuthering Heights (forthcoming in 2013). A professor of English at Saint Josephs University, Lindner lives in Havertown, Pennsylvania, with her husband and sons.