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    The Constant Velocity of Trains
    The Constant Velocity of Trains
    The Constant Velocity of Trains
    Ebook87 pages30 minutes

    The Constant Velocity of Trains

    By Lea C. Deschenes

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    About this ebook

    Author Lea Deschenes' collection of honest, inquisitive poetry takes readers on a tour from the front steps in her native New England to uncharted jungles and beyond the edge of the universe, accompanied by Einstein, Marcus Aurelius and Rumi. Poetically, she balances precise craft with heartfelt meaning. From studies of a culture moving at the speed of light to meditations upon capital-L Love, The Constant Velocity of Trains finds its heart in relativity: the intersecting, interlocking, and often exasperating perspectives that make up reality.

    Lea Deschenes is flirting with perfection. It’s taken much too long for her words to reach a larger audience, an audience that’s been searching fruitlessly for what her work has always offered – bold glimpses of what exhilarates, frightens and moves us. -Patricia Smith, “Blood Dazzlerâ€

    Lea Deschenes throws the well-aimed stone of her poetry through the glass houses of hypocrisy and human coldness... she is at all times intelligent, tender, and wedded to the quest for self-knowledge...There's wisdom at work, and at play, in this book. -Alicia Ostriker, “No Heaven"

    every poem feels entirely free to find its own voice, its own form. ...this latest volume adds an absolute precision in charting our emotional minefields; a wisdom and a surety of touch that make these poems utterly convincing. -Jack McCarthy, “Good Nightâ€
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherWrite Bloody Publishing
    Release dateAug 13, 2010
    ISBN9781935904823
    The Constant Velocity of Trains

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      Book preview

      The Constant Velocity of Trains - Lea C. Deschenes

      Title Page

      The Constant Velocity of Trains

      a collection of poetry

      †

      by Lea C. Deschenes

      Write Bloody Publishing

      America’s Independent Press

      Long Beach, CA

      writebloody.com

      Copyright Information

      Copyright © Lea C. Deschenes 2010

      No part of this book may be used or performed without written consent from the author, if living, except for critical articles or reviews.

      Deschenes, Lea C.

      1st edition.

      ISBN: 978-1-935904-82-3

      Interior Layout by Lea C. Deschenes

      Cover Designed by dsn crz, Nate Warkentin

      Author Photo by Kae Collins

      Edited by Derrick Brown and Saadia Byram

      Special thanks to Lightning Bolt Donor, Weston Renoud

      Printed in Tennessee, USA

      Write Bloody Publishing

      Long Beach, CA

      Support Independent Presses

      writebloody.com

      To contact the author, send an email to writebloody@gmail.com

      Acknowledgements & Thanks

      Transitional Phrases and On Both Our Houses appeared in the February-March issue of Lunarosity

      The author would like to thank everyone who made these poems possible or necessary, including (but by no means limited to) the following:

      The faculty, students & staff of the New England College MFA in Poetry, particularly her mentors Ross Gay, Jeff Friedman, Alicia Suskin Ostriker & Ilya Kaminsky, her second reader Michael Waters and academic director Jacqueline Gens.

      The Dead Dogma Wildly Inappropriate Workshop crew.

      Many friends for their company, poetry & occasionally talking the author off a metaphorical ledge, especially Lea A., Tony B. & Dorinda W.

      Derrick Brown and the staff of Write Bloody Publishing for their vote of confidence.

      Victor, as always, for being a bit of wordless sense in a talkative world.

      A Note on Lea C. Deschenes’ Work

      by Ilya Kaminsky

      Lea C. Deschenes is a poet of large, far reaching ambition and the lyric that speaks to us intimately, and movingly. The reader of this collection, if this reader is attentive, is able to stand next to her together / briefly lit before the world / takes what it takes.

      I say she is an ambitious poet because it takes a great deal of bravery and ambition—in the best meaning of that word—to attempt to build a ladder to the face of god. And, yet, on the same page, we are told: I no longer pray for anything / save the gift of understanding. This is the sort of ambition I wish more young poets would aim for in our age overwhelmed by irony.

      I say that her address is direct, yet intimate, because she is able to write Avoiding other things, I thought I’d write / to you. When she does write, what she offers is a stuttering light.

      Still, I say she is an ambitious poet because in the piece called Omens for Agnostics she is able to place Eden and IKEA in the same stanza, finding profane in the divine, and light in detail. When you pray to nothing she tells us, it is for peace. Yes, it is a good ambition.

      And, yet in this public tone, one finds much directness, intimacy. In

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