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Forest Primeval: Poems

"Another Anti-Pastoral," the opening poem of Forest Primeval, confesses that sometimes "words fail." With a "bleat in [her] throat," the poet identifies with the voiceless and wild things in the composed, imposed peace of the Romantic poets with whom she is in dialogue. Vievee Francis’s poems engage many of the same concerns as her poetic predecessors—faith in a secular age, the city and nature, aging, and beauty. Words certainly do not fail as Francis sets off into the wild world promised in the title. The wild here is not chaotic but rather free and finely attuned to its surroundings. The reader who joins her will emerge sensitized and changed by the enduring power of her work.  

Paperback: 104 pages

Publisher: Triquarterly (November 30, 2015)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 0810132435

ISBN-13: 978-0810132436

Product Dimensions: 6.1 x 0.3 x 8.4 inches

Shipping Weight: 12.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)

Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)

Best Sellers Rank: #110,435 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #57 in Books > Literature & Fiction > African American > Poetry #427 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Poetry > Regional & Cultural > United States #20301 in Books > Literature & Fiction > United States

IIn Forest Primeval, Vievee Francis provokes what feels like an intimate conversation with the reader or as a commentary on the book jacket puts it “a sacred conversation with the reader, wrestling with the distressing angel for all of us and demanding a blessing.” There’s such honesty in these poems, a willingness to be direct and risky around matters of the heart, including revenge or resentment: "When you left, I went to your swan's coop, / snapped every slender neck / in the lot." The speaker seems always in quest of truth driven by a curiosity about what drives her and what is actually going on, and a willingness to challenge her own assumptions. The lyricism of so many lines stand out (“like a sorrow of banjoes”), along with the evocative use of fairy tales and myth to address questions of male-female relationships, beauty, and modern living. The internal Dantesque explorations remind me of Frank Gaspar’s poetry; the precise clarity of thought and expression coming from deep wounding, of Louise Glück’s; and the artful, provocative use of essential questions, of Mary Oliver:“…Those with love will have it.Those without will go without. Did you think it would beotherwise?”and,“ …What kind of girl are you?The kind who wants to live, I said, and I did want tountil I didn’t anymore. But I wanted the leavingto be on my terms, so I hit my father back.”and, “From the window I considered the fall, butI was so pleased to be alive, to realize I now had you,if only briefly, all to myself. Dear blade,so what the truncated future? It is the licks I knoware coming that will buckle and betray me.”and, “Wolf is just oneWay to there To that pain that rocksyour bones Rocking away[.]” It’s an amazing book, one I’ll read again (and again), to savor and to study how the poet does what she does.

Vievee Francis is one of the most exciting poets I've discovered within the last year. Beautiful, haunting and not afraid of the ugly making her words cut twice as deep. Most poets will spend years trying to replicate a work such as Forest Primeval and never come close to its incandescent, transcendent nature.The rhythm is both as blunt as a sharp point of a cliff and at other times it stops dead in its track to call attention to a small and intricate detail otherwise ignored. It is the perfect observation of the intense joys and sadness or loneliness of an artistic dreamer life and of the life of a woman in general. I am proud to call Vievee Francis a fellow woman and feminist. This book is so well worth the purchase. An absolute hidden gem. I promise you will not be disappointed.

This is a fantastic piece of work from Vievee Francis!. In Forest Primeval, she covers difficult emotional terrain regarding race, gender, image, and the and the author's personal biography that extends from the rural farm life of Texas to the cold concrete of Chicago and on to the woods of North Carolina. The poet's visceral use of image and stunning insight will make you wince as you turn the page to the next poem, and the next, and the next...

FOREST PRIMEVAL is a restless collection of poems in which landscapes (urban, rural, and mythic) collide and collude with the body (that ship full of inherent history). These are poems that both speak to, and subvert the tenets of, Romanticism. The result? Poems in which beauty if found in what is widely worshipped and, especially, in what is feared.

This woman is an extraordinary poet and uses her medium, her art, her history to wake us up in ways we may not want to be--but must be!

Forest Primeval: Poems Noah Primeval (Chronicles of the Nephilim) (Volume 1) Noah Primeval (Chronicles of the Nephilim Book 1) Angry Birds Playground: Rain Forest: A Forest Floor to Treetop Adventure Cold Mountain Poems: Zen Poems of Han Shan, Shih Te, and Wang Fan-chih (Shambhala Library) Enchanted Forest: An Inky Quest & Coloring Book Tree Gardens: Architecture and the Forest The Forest Garden Greenhouse: How to Design and Manage an Indoor Permaculture Oasis Color & Frame Coloring Book - 3 in 1 - Country, Forest, City Enchanted Forest Postcards: 20 Postcards Enchanted Forest Artist's Edition: 20 Drawings to Color and Frame Creative Haven Midnight Forest Coloring Book: Animal Designs on a Dramatic Black Background (Adult Coloring) Enchanted Forest 2017 Wall Calendar: An Inky Quest and 2017 Coloring Calendar Flowers of the Forest: The Botanical Art of Margaret Mee Mbuti Design: Paintings by Pygmy Women of the Ituri Forest Bayaka: The Extraordinary Music of the Babenzele Pygmies and Sounds of Their Forest Home Forest Fairies 2017 Square Flame Tree (ST-Glitter) Forest Feast 2017 Wall Calendar Forest Feast 2016 Wall Calendar Forest Wall Calendar - Calendars 2016 - 2017 Calendar - Nature Wall Calendar -Photo Calendars - Photo Calendar By Helma