Emily Vogel
The Philosopher’s Wife
(2011)
Emily Vogel
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
7pm – 8pm
Book Reading and Signing
"From my first encounter with them I have been struck by the ferocity of clarity and understatement with which Vogel shapes and controls and, in fact, intensifies the impact of these splendidly constructed poems. They bring to mind Berryman's enigmatically simple phrase, "the freedom of the poet. "I'm startled again and again by their authenticity, distinctiveness of voice, and the authority of tone, the dark fun, the sexiness and delightful adventurousness they display. One hardly knows what to expect next in one of her poems, but can be sure it will be both startling and, somehow, symmetrically inevitable. It is so heartening to know there is one more serious young poet out there-there are so very few." ~Franz Wright, 2004 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry
Emily Vogel, in The Philosopher's Wife, speaks to discovery. Discovery of the self, discovery of the other, and what the comingling of the two can do to create more than the sum of their parts. These poems speak to possibilities, revealing the mysteries of enchantment, the too-often fleeting moment of adoration that accompanies found love. If not first love, then love in that elevated state of being one experiences upon realizing this "other" that what one hopes for, lives for, and dies for. A love we imagine to be true and lasting, though experience tells us that is not always so. The cathedral of marriage here is not binding; there is no obligation, no forced responsibility. While not all things will be true or come true, adrenaline pulses just below the surface in the "giddiness of grass" the "attenuated light of the wakeful mind," and for a while it is in fact all true. ~Michael Foldes