| Stitching Porcelain: Poetry Contributor(s): Larsen, Deborah (Author) |
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ISBN: 0811211614 ISBN-13: 9780811211611 Publisher: New Directions Publishing Corporation OUR PRICE: $8.96 Product Type: Paperback Published: April 1991 |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Poetry | American - General |
| Dewey: 811.54 |
| LCCN: 90021176 |
| Series: New Directions Paperbook |
| Physical Information: 0.26" H x 6.74" W x 6.24" (0.27 lbs) 61 pages |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: Stitching Porcelain, Deborah Larsen's first book of poetry, is a narrative-lyric sequence based on the life of Matteo Ricci, the resourceful Jesuit who entered China in 1583 and stayed for a quarter century. Pondering cultural accommodation as well as faith, many of the poems center on actual events: Ricci's dressing as a Buddhist; his awe-inspiring map (with China shrewdly centered); his prostration before an empty Dragon Throne. Other events the poet imagined. (In the title room, Ricci addresses a love lyric to China: Your porcelain is so fine, so thin, /a brass wire can repair it . . . /Once I saw you beneath the bamboo/ . . . bent back/from the world, stitching porcelain.) With a felicity rare in a debut volume, Larsen's opalescent poetry works in perfect counterpoint to the strange and brilliant Ricci |