Dying for Beauty: Poems

by Gail Wronsky

Whether paying tribute to literary icons such as Walt Whitman and Sor Juana In s de la Cruz, or examining global and cultural degradation, Wronsky proves to be a poet of sharp wit and endearing wonder. The crowning jewel of Dying for Beauty is "Desdemona," a nearly book-length lyric that alternates between meditation and dramatization, between discourse and incantation. "I started out thinking I was writing an elegy for the earth - from my...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1556591357
• ISBN13: 9781556591358
• Release Date: February 2000
• Publisher: Copper Canyon Press
• Length: 96 Pages
• Weight: 0.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 5.5" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

Breathtaking!

The poems in Gail Wronsky's collection are inhabited by the ghosts of the forgotten. Desdemona, Walt Whitman, and Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz haunt the pages of the book, challenging silence and silencers. In those moments the sublime rises from the ordinary in sequences like "The Earth as Desdemona." The book is filled with surprise: a lawn chair becomes a cubist chicken, hieroglyphs appear in the sky. Wronsky's "Dying for Beauty" mixes elegance with outrageousness. The language that bridges these two sensibilities reveal the blessings of music.

Dyong for Beauty

Seeing this book on your list is a special treat for me because I happen to be one of Professor Wronsky's students at Loyala Marymount University in Los Angeles. She desrves all of the credit towards her book because she is a brilliant English professor who has a love and deep appreciation for what she teaches.