February 1, 2012
—It is with profound sadness that we announce that brilliant poet and visual artist Dorothea Tanning, author of A Table of Content and Coming to That, passed away in her sleep last night. She was 101 years old.
"All of us at Graywolf Press note with sadness the death of Dorothea Tanning," said senior editor Jeffrey Shotts. "We are honored to have published her two poetry books, the first of which was published when she was 94 and the second of which was published just last fall when she turned 101. As she herself remarked, with her usual wry self-awareness, she was 'the oldest emerging poet.' The fact that she could have such an illustrious career as a visual artist and, so late in that career, then turn to poetry with such forceful craft and signature imagination is a triumph of her unparalleled vision and indomitable spirit. Working with her over two books has been one of the greatest delights of my career as an editor. Knowing her these last ten years will remain one of the signposts of my life. She is missed."
ARTIST, ONCE
That was in a room for rent.
It had a window and a bed,
it was enough for dreaming,
for stunning facts like being
at last, and undeniably
in NYC, enough to hold
enfolded as in pregnancy,
those not-yet-painted works
to be. They, hanging fire,
slow to come—to come
out—being deep inside her,
oozing metamorphosis
in her warm dark, took
their time and promised.
Fast forward. Trapped in now,
she's not all that sure.
Compared to what entwined
her mind before the test,
before the raw achievement
pat, secure—oh, such bounty
to be lived, yet untasted,
undefined—all the rest . . .
By Victoria Redel "Cryptic... authoritative and vast—full of suspense, emotional urgency,
and shimmering imagery.... A nightmare tale of mother-love strong
enough to swallow a child whole." —Voice Literary Supplement
“Charles Simic has performed a great service by
reminding us, precisely at this moment of turmoil and destruction, that ‘there
are still poets and beautiful poems to be discovered and read with lasting
pleasure in this vile old world.’”
By Jane Jeong Trenka "Fugitive Visions offers a searing, intimate portrait of an artist's return to her native land. Trenka opens a door for readers into the sharply contoured sorrows and disorientations of diaspora--the bittersweet duality of knowing the fruits of the land with one's body but still having the language lie uneasy and rebellious on the foreign-trained tongue.”
Saskia Hamilton, author of As for Dream and editor of The Letters of Robert Lowell, explores “where the pull of reverie becomes palpable and eerily seductive” (Poetry).
“Pay attention to
[Mary Jane] Nealon—she’s a keeper. . . . I desperately wish skilled poets
like Nealon wrote at least half of all memoirs. This is to be savored. There are mediations on life, death,
leaving, returning, growing, healing; I will reread it.”—Library Journal,
starred review