{"product_id":"strange-hymn-poems-9781625348647","title":"Strange Hymn: Poems","description":"\u003cp\u003e \"I'll tell you everything I know. Though there might not be much to tell,\" confesses the speaker in \u003ci\u003eStrange Hymn\u003c\/i\u003e by Carlene Kucharczyk, in a meticulously crafted lyrical journey exploring morality and humanity. The poems here grapple with understanding physical loss: \"I wanted \/ to know at once and definitively our animal bodies \/ were not all we were. It is shameful to be this fragile.\" They also engage with the more abstract slipping away of memory and time: \"Since I was born, I have been forgetting. Forgetting what I have wanted to remember.\" Kucharczyk's insightful poems blur the lines between history and myth, love and grief, song and silence. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Caught between lamenting the passage of time and rejoicing in small beauties, she writes, \"I tell you, I wish we could stay here longer \/ in this hotel of lost grandeur, this palace of interesting disarray, \/ and stay here with these pieces of the impersonal past \/ that have somehow not yet outlasted their small lights.\" Each moment reflects on our ephemeral lives from musings on art and nature to reflections on the self, asking \"Is a mirror a sort of glass house? \/ And, is there a way to see ourselves besides through the glass?\" \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e As readers traverse this collection, they learn how the body sings, the many iterations of Mary, what sirens truly think of Odysseus, how a Morning Glory unfurls, and lessons in orthodontics, but most importantly, how to live with absence. Kucharczyk is a master of manipulating time and space through her dynamic use of form, creating a narrative that begs, \"After I'm gone, don't bury my body-- \/ Burn it, and turn it into song.\" \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCARLENE KUCHARCZYK's writing has appeared in literary journals such as \u003ci\u003ePoetry Northwest\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eMid-American Review\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eTupelo Quarterly\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eGreen Mountains Review\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eConduit\u003c\/i\u003e, and has received a Pushcart nomination.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"University of Massachusetts Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51179975999762,"sku":"9781625348647","price":13.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_5d510d2d-6846-4823-b9f0-b96e1518ad2c.jpg?v=1744380719","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/strange-hymn-poems-9781625348647","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}