Sleeping with a Famous Poet, Poems by Cathleen Calbert
By
turns comic and dark, the poems of Cathleen Calbert's Sleeping with a Famous
Poet explore the treacherous landscape of sexuality and human connection
at a breathless pace and with a breathtaking lack of fear. Calbert's invigorating
work leaves the reader both shaken and stirred--and wiser.
Sample Poems by Cathleen Calbert
"I think of Cathleen Calbert as a poet who investigates and celebrates intimacy. She is fascinated by our means of connecting--through speech, culture, sex--and details our movements toward and away from each other in a way that balances intellection and emotion. It's no surprise that language is the fundamental intimacy for any poet, but in Calbert's work, the distance between the body and what can be said is almost erased. 'Write a new poem for me,' said my old lover./I led him to bed.' As these lines make clear, Calbert's vision is sensual and generative. This is a powerful book."--Bob Hicok
"Cathleen Calbert's Sleeping with a Famous Poet is a glorious romp of a book. She explores male and female relationships--through post-confessional modes, myth, and pop cultures--with hilarity and poignancy. Calbert's poems are sassy, sexy, smart, and full of pizzazz. Her formal innovations include poems that zigzag down the page, soap opera-inspired rhyming couplets, and an astounding re-imagining of Sei Shonagon's The Pillow Book. Her energy is dizzying. Her voice is enthralling. The poems in Sleeping with a Famous Poet burst from the page."--Denise Duhamel
Cathleen Calbert has published two previous books of poetry: Lessons in Space (University of Florida Press) and Bad Judgment (Sarabande Books). Individually, her poems have appeared in many publications, including Ms. Magazine, The New Republic, and The Paris Review. She has been awarded The Nation Discovery Award, the Gordon Barber Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America, and a Pushcart Prize. Currently, she is the Director of Creative Writing at Rhode Island College but lives in Connecticut with a tall man and two small dogs.
ISBN: 978-1933456898, 92 pages, $17.00