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    Lost Alphabet
    Lost Alphabet
    Lost Alphabet
    Ebook98 pages29 minutes

    Lost Alphabet

    By Lisa Olstein

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    About this ebook

    “This poet brings a sparkling consciousness to the page and an exciting new voice to American poetry.”—Library Journal

    “Most appealing is Olstein's sensitive, quietly pained and earnest tone, w hich, more than the unusual subject, is the real star of this book.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review

    In Lisa Olstein’s daring new book, an unnamed lepidopterist—living in a hut on the edge of an unnamed village—is drawn ever deeper into the engrossing world of moths, light, and seeing. Structured as a naturalist’s notebook, the four-part sequence of prose poems create a layered pilgrimage into the consequences of intensive study, the trials of being an outsider, and the process of metamorphosis. In an interview, Olstein once said, “I don’t want poetry to limit itself to reflecting or recapitulating experience; I want it to be an experience.”

    I have learned to peer at specimens through a small crack at the center of my fist. It’s a habit herders use for distance: vision is concentrated, the crude tunnel brings into focus whatever small expanse lies on the other side, something in the narrowing magnifies what remains. At the table, my hand tires of clenching, my left eye of closing, my right of its squint, but the effect: a blurred carpet of wing becomes a careful weave of eyelashes colored, curved, exquisitely laid . . .

    Lisa Olstein is the author of the Hayden Carruth Award–winning volume Radio Crackling, Radio Gone. She earned her MFA from the University of Massachusetts and directs the Juniper Initiative for Literary Arts and Action in Amherst, Massachusetts.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCopper Canyon Press
    Release dateDec 11, 2012
    ISBN9781619320529
    Lost Alphabet
    Author

    Lisa Olstein

    Lisa Olstein is a renowned author who specializes in poetry and nonfiction. She currently teaches at the University of Texas at Austin.

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      Book preview

      Lost Alphabet - Lisa Olstein

      [my only life]

      I have arrived in a place I think I will stay for a while. My shadow is cast before me by the paleness of a certain star after the moon is down. It won’t last long—another week, maybe two. It’s like nothing I’ve seen. Night floats through watery light. People step out at a certain hour. At first I didn’t know why, then I joined them.

      [sometimes they worship fire]

      The people here know nothing they will reveal in my presence. I watch wrists and doorways, guess at the jewelry passed from mother to son. Near the river, all the boards lie easterly; near the place they gather, to the north. They have thrown me several parties: homemade whiskey and dancing, music played with a dull spoon on the side of a pig. There is a saying: No bad news at night. Save it for morning, or never.

      [dreamy little savage]

      Light is a blanket or a basin in which to wash. Then it is nothing again, and here I am, there the plains, the well, the watering hole, animals congregated there, a herd of low clouds on the horizon. The last healer I went to was haughty and would not look me in the eye. The gesture for come here looks like go away. No is said with the flick of an eyebrow, a soft click of the

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