{"product_id":"thin-air-of-the-knowable-9781771314602","title":"Thin Air of the Knowable","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eAn elegiac and incisive debut that blends poems of social justice with poems of ordinary life.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eIn her first collection, \u003ci\u003eThin Air of the Knowable\u003c\/i\u003e, the physical landscapes of Wendy Donawa's life—West Coast, Caribbean, prairies—ground many of her poems and often reflect the inner geography of her preoccupations. A road-trip poem moves from prairie winter, \"an icy scatter of gravel \/ the moving centre of this unpeopled world,\" past a cattle liner on its way to the slaughter house, but it also passes beneath the sky's \"blazing scroll of light,\" and magpies \"flashing black and teal in the sun.\" Landscape also functions metaphorically to suggest how historical settings play out in the exigencies of individual lives.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eOther preoccupations include poems that reflect on poesis itself—the strange poem-making compulsion to capture that which is largely inexpressible (hence \"the thin air of the knowable\"), and the role of dreams, memory, and intuition in shaping a poem's knowledge.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eDonawa is, in many ways, a political poet, yet manages to put flesh and blood into everything she writes. In the end,\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003e\"Perhaps there is only the demonic journey.\u003cbr\u003eSmall beauties by the roadside, and\u003cbr\u003esuch love as we can muster.\"\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e(from \"Pu Ru Paints Zhong Kui the Demon Queller on a Mule\")\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003ePraise for \u003ci\u003eThin Air of the Knowable\u003c\/i\u003e:\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\"Wendy Donawa's poetry rests at the very edge of beauty where a wild delicacy resides.\"\u003cb\u003e—Patrick Lane\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\"Like the watchmakers of old, Wendy Donawa puts a spyglass to her eye and fixes her vision to the minute, to all that carries on beneath our imperfect sight—worlds upon worlds brought into the sharpest focus.\"\u003cb\u003e—Pamela Porter\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Wendy Donawa","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48278405841147,"sku":"9781771314602","price":20.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0779\/3917\/9771\/files\/9781771314602.jpg?v=1772486317","url":"https:\/\/indiepubs.com\/products\/thin-air-of-the-knowable-9781771314602","provider":"IndiePubs","version":"1.0","type":"link"}