To Feed the Stone

To Feed the Stone - Polish Literature

Paperback (10 Jun 2021)

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Publisher's Synopsis

In her audacious debut To Feed the Stone, Bronka Nowicka offers writing that is both timeless and timely. Using the language of folk narrative, like Italo Calvino, Russell Edson and Jan Svankmajer before her, Nowicka's prose poems take us through the stark and disorienting world of a child--a world that excavates the border of appearances in a constant search for the essence of connection. The poet reconfigures the dynamics between people and objects, cause and effect, the body and the outside world, and the tenuous boundaries between death and life. As Nowicka's child-narrator poignantly observes after discovering the body of a dead family member: "Her head was hanging over the armrest, her mouth open wide as if, with her whole body, she was taking the last photo of this world." An ant ground between fingers smells of vinegar. A butterfly has powder, a mole has a tailcoat. You can roll filth down your skin. Old people smell like borsch. You have butter behind your fingernails where splinters can get in. There are hunch-backed people and crazy people but not dogs or birds. Sucking on the salty knee, the child knows: the only thing that separates you from the world is the skin. Thanks to skin, you're not swallowed up by the vastness of things. Excerpt of "Tights" from To Feed the Stone

Book information

ISBN: 9781628973723
Publisher: Deep Vellum Publishing
Imprint: Dalkey Archive Press
Pub date:
DEWEY: 891.8518
DEWEY edition: 23
Language: English
Number of pages: 112
Weight: 178g
Height: 139mm
Width: 215mm
Spine width: 11mm