The Cartographer's Tongue

by Susan Rich

Overview

Qustions of geography, ethnic identity, and the corssing of cultural borders keep company with poetic form in this first collection of work.

“These poems will wound you and haunt you, but the larger knowing they bring is crucial . Susan Rich is a caring citizen of every heartland.”—Naomi Shihab Nye

“Susan Rich gives us a collection of poems...generous in the range and power of their emotion.”—J. M. Coetzee

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781893996069
Publisher:	White Pine Press
Publication date:	04/01/2000
Pages:	96
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.30(d)

About the Author

Susan Rich is a poet and Fulbright Fellow. She teaches at Highline College and lives in Seattle, WA.

Table of Contents

	Explorations
	Lost By Way of Tchin-Tabarden	13
	Tuareg Tea Ceremony	14
	Haiti	16
	Welcome to the Mapparium	18
	Spring Break	19
	Atopos: Without Place	21
	The Woman With a Hole in the Middle of Her Face	23
	The Myth of the Perfect Move	25
	Nomadic Life	26
	In the Language of Maps	27
	The Wall	28
	Lessons in the Desert	29
	The Toughest Job	30
	The Beggars	32
	The Filigree of the Familiar	33
	Parts of a Globe
	Sarajevo	39
	Traveling the Map	40
	How to Read a Map	42
	La Verbena Cemetery	44
	Taoseno	45
	The Wheelchair Repairman's Bride Imagines Her First Night	47
	Whatever Happened to the Bodies...	48
	Oslobodjenje	49
	Ghazal For a Woman From Vitez	50
	Leaving Sarajevo	51
	L'Oiseau Bleu	52
	Science Lessons	54
	Stories	57
	The Palmist	61
	Nocturne	62
	Wendy in the 90s	65
	Train Travel	66
	On Photographing the National Library	68
	In Our Name	70
	Flames	71
	The Place	73
	Muted Gold
	The Scent of Gasoline	77
	Seat Mate	80
	Green Street Grill	82
	1959	83
	Lines Written Before Seeing an Ex-Lover Who Has Become A Sex Therapist	84
	The Exact Moment	86
	Men at Work	87
	Early Morning Weather	88
	What I Will Take From My Mother	90
	Last Breath	91
	1 January 1999	93
	Edgelight	95
	Love in the Time of AIDS	98
	All That We Need	100
	Muted Gold	101
	Take Off	103