Publisher's Synopsis
"Joyce Sutphen's first collection reveals a poet of place whose assured, straightforward style seems sprung from the Minnesota farmlands where she was raised."—Publishers WeeklyAwarded the 1994 Barnard New Women Poets Prize, these poems are alive with motion, poems in the act of transformation even as the words fly onto the page. While rooted in the Midwest, the poems extend far beyond the homegrown, moving from the sudden disaster of "Tornado Warning" to sweeping landscapes of the American West to London, where in gentler tones she confronts Sylvia Plath. Sutphen's voice is refreshing throughout, capturing emotion with swift imagistic strokes.Joyce Sutphen teaches literature and creative writing at Gustavus Adolphus College in Saint Peter, Minnesota.CrossroadsThe second half of my life will be blackto the white rind of the old and fading moon.The second half of my life will be waterover the cracked floor of these desert years.I will land on my feet this time,knowing at least two languages and whomy friends are. I will dress for theoccasion, and my hair shall bewhatever color I please.Everyone will go on celebrating the oldbirthday, counting the years as usual,but I will count myself new from thisinception, this imprint of my own desire.The second half of my life will be swift,past leaning fenceposts, a gravel shoulder,asphalt tickets, the beckon of open road.The second half of my life will be wide-eyed,fingers shifting through fine sands,arms loose at my sides, wandering feet.There will be new dreams every night,and the drapes will never be closed.I will toss my string of keys into a deepwell and old letters into the grate.The second half of my life will be icebreaking up on the river, rainsoaking the fields, a handheld out, a fire,and smoke going upward, always up.
