Keynote
Winner of the James Laughlin Award from the Academy of American Poets
Book Title
The Game of Boxes
Subtitle
Poems
Cover Image
- “Though the poems in the long-awaited second collection from Barnett are only a handful of lines each, they are deceptively sophisticated.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review
Body
Everyone asks what we're afraid of
but we aren't supposed to say.
We could put loneliness on the list.
We could put this list on the list,
its infinity. We could put infinity down.
—from “Chorus” Whittled down to song and fragments of story, these poems teeter at the edge of dread. In Catherine Barnett's second book, love stutters its way in and out of both family and erotic bonds. A gang of unchaperoned children, grappling with blame and forgiveness, speak with tenderness and disdain about “the mothers” and “the fathers,” absent figures they seek in “the face of the clouds” and in the cars that pass by. In an extended sequence of nocturnes, a man and a woman eschew almost everything but the ghostly erotic and its stark love. The final poems hover above dread, or burrow beneath it, to discover "the intersection / of Meaning and Pleasure, which the map / says is a little further inside of here."
but we aren't supposed to say.
We could put loneliness on the list.
We could put this list on the list,
its infinity. We could put infinity down.
—from “Chorus” Whittled down to song and fragments of story, these poems teeter at the edge of dread. In Catherine Barnett's second book, love stutters its way in and out of both family and erotic bonds. A gang of unchaperoned children, grappling with blame and forgiveness, speak with tenderness and disdain about “the mothers” and “the fathers,” absent figures they seek in “the face of the clouds” and in the cars that pass by. In an extended sequence of nocturnes, a man and a woman eschew almost everything but the ghostly erotic and its stark love. The final poems hover above dread, or burrow beneath it, to discover "the intersection / of Meaning and Pleasure, which the map / says is a little further inside of here."
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About the Author
Credit: Credit: Farah Al Qasimi and Res
Praise
- Winner of the James Laughlin Award of the Academy of American Poets
- “In skillfully wrought poems, Barnett’s language can be as soft as it is jarring; this is language that ‘shivers.’ . . . Highly recommended.”—Library Journal
- “Short and tight, all of Barnett's poems are purposeful—and often powerful. The Game of Boxes is a book the reader will want to return to after the first perusal.”—Shelf Awareness for Readers
- "These lucid, nuanced poems implore us to 'marvel at the visible'. . . . In the process, Barnett reveals the happiness that exists despite—and alongside—the inevitability of loss."—Oprah.com
Acknowledgements
Acknowledgements
This book is made possible, in part, through the Jerome Foundation, which supports new works by emerging artists in New York City and Minnesota, and by the generosity of Graywolf Press donors like you.
