Monday, February 17, 2014

wifthing, Pattie McCarthy

"This thing needs thorns," writes Pattie McCarthy, this wife + thing submerged seamlessly in images of the quotidian daily and the reliquary past. Here, McCarthy marries the female body in its role of wife/mother to repetition, humor, and surprise unfolding on the page.

An excerpt:

it was a real word once a wifthing
has the flavor of the whole
day in her throat before she
gets out of bed she is successfully
camouflaged by her nice linens
& a wifthing's sons wake at 6.00 to watch
squirrels together on a windowsill

PATTIE McCARTHY is the author of six books of poetry: nulls (Horse Less Press, 2014), Quiet Book (Apogee Press, forthcoming), Marybones, Table Alphabetical of Hard Words, Verso, and bk of (h)rs (all from Apogee). She has several forthcoming chapbooks: scenes from the lives of my parents (Bloof Books), fifteen genre scenes (eth press), and x y z && (Ahsahta Press). She was a 2011 Pew Fellow in the Arts and had a residency at the Elizabeth Bishop House in Great Village, Nova Scotia, in summer 2013. She teaches at Temple University.

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