Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $9.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Is, Is Not
    Is, Is Not
    Is, Is Not
    Ebook151 pages1 hour

    Is, Is Not

    By Tess Gallagher

    3.5/5

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Tess Gallagher’s new poems are suspended between contradiction and beauty. Is, Is Not upends our notions of linear time, evokes the spirit and sanctity of place, and journeys toward discovering the full capacity of language. Gallagher’s poems reverberate with the inward clarity of a bell struck on a mountaintop and hover daringly at the threshold of what language can nearly deliver while offering alternative corollaries as gifts of its failures. Guided by humour, grace, and a deep inquiry into the natural world, every poem nudges us toward moments of awe. How else except by delight and velocity would we discover the miracle within the ordinary? Gallagher claims many Wests – the Northwest of America, the north-west of Ireland, and a West even further to the edge, beyond the physical. These landscapes are charged with invisible energies and inhabited by the people, living and dead, who shape Gallagher’s poems and life. Restorative in every sense, Is, Is Not is the kind of book that takes a lifetime to write – a book of the spirit made manifest by the poet’s unrelenting gaze and her intimate engagement with the mysteries that keep us reaching.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBloodaxe Books
    Release dateMar 28, 2019
    ISBN9781780374628
    Is, Is Not
    Author

    Tess Gallagher

    Tess Gallagher is a poet, essayist, fiction writer and playwright. She has published many books, including five poetry titles in Britain with Bloodaxe, most recently Midnight Lantern: New & Selected Poems (2012), and now her latest collection, Is Is Not (2019). She has published two collections of stories, The Lover of Horses (1986) and At the Owl Woman Saloon (1997), and two books of essays, A Concert of Tenses: Essays on Poetry (1986) and Soul Barnacles: Ten More Years with Ray (2000). She co-authored two screenplays with Raymond Carver, and later contributed to the making of the Robert Altman film Short Cuts, based on Carver’s work. She spends parts of each year in the West of Ireland, and her collection of oral stories from Ireland, Barnacle Soup, co-authored with Irish painter and storyteller Josie Gray, was published by Blackstaff Press in 2007.

    Related to Is, Is Not

    Related ebooks

    Poetry For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Devil Asks Why You Would Mouth The Word Pity

      Jul 1, 2022

      even in this abundance of dark? Even in this abundance of dark you have totake the stars on faith. Look: Under today’s dim sky there is a basket.In that basket there is a fish. Come night, you are the animal that will eat the best parts of it. And ye

      1 min read

    • Article

      Five Poems

      Nov 1, 2022

      A prayer begins & endseach meeting, it starts with the word God& ends with the word difference. The difference, as far as I can tell,between what is offered & what is possible is a chasm. At times it seemswe simply run out of places to be, until we c

      3 min read

    • Article

      Falling Out of Love with Lyric Poetry

      Feb 6, 2024

      Bang out hundreds of pages of rhyming couplets about something other than your identity or your perceptions, and you, too, will likely fall out of love with lyric poetry. The post Falling Out of Love with Lyric Poetry appeared first on The Millions.

      4 min read

    • Article

      Three Poems

      Nov 1, 2023

      for Brenda Shaughnessy The news isn’t good, and neither of us feelslike pretending, though the list of what we hope forgrows longer by the day. More news, goodor otherwise, everything witnessed by the lightof fires, and something we cherished alwaysb

      2 min read

    • Article

      Three Poems

      Jul 1, 2020

      She was a security guard and even though her uniform was black I could seeIt was covered in blood, the marble floor was covered in blood, it wasSlowly pooling out from the space where HER HAND used to beOh my god, I said, then I started to say, YOUR

      3 min read

    • Article

      Toward A Unified Theory

      Jan 1, 2022

      Condemned to live inside the weatherof our moods What are you doing? Filling this bucket with waterand dumping it into the water They can’t excavate the amphitheater further because it extends backbeneath the houses We close their eyes not for thembu

      2 min read

    • Article

      Two Poems

      Mar 15, 2022

      a ghost is hangingfrom the doorpostof our past— can you see it?it has wounds—it’s bleedingyears from its mouth [.] when we left ourhouses that aprilit was for history’s pleasure— twice the war wasin far-flung townsthen it grew a light foot and veered

      1 min read

    • Article

      Five Poems

      May 1, 2023

      Let’s be GodFor a moment, Shall we?That which invites Composition,That which is suspended From a great height,The presence Of approximationHeavy in the meadows, I’m not afraid,And yet My shroud vanishesIn these lines, I am so weptPast weeping, And wh

      1 min read

    • Article

      Something About John Coltrane

      Sep 1, 2021

      Something about a tree in shallow sleepListening for what it wants to remember: The note of a seed, its neck sliding throughDirt and its confusion—nothing cleansed Of struggle. The weight lost after death,A confrontation of death. John Coltrane Even

      5 min read

    • Article

      Two Poems

      Jan 1, 2022

      Two Poems
      2 min read

    • Article

      The Poetry Of Perseverance

      Aug 15, 2018

      The Poetry Of Perseverance
      11 min read

    • Article

      All I Know

      Jul 1, 2022

      The Statue of Liberty was packed in crates of lentilsand there is a species of catfish with scalesso tough that piranhas can’t chew throughto red softness. I’m thinking of what is vital,today. The willow tree in my dreams that swaysand a little girl

      2 min read

    • Article

      Six Sonnets

      Jan 1, 2021

      Goldenrod, I could say, you know, everybody wants somethingfrom me, but, well, everybody wants something and nobody wantsnothing from me, goldenrod, towhead, beast. Goldenrod, you packthe meadows like gold-plated sardines. I have heart palpitationsbu

      3 min read

    • Article

      Bless Your Soup

      Jan 1, 2022

      I am doing the work of healing.As in:I cry to early-2000s Paula DeAnda.I wash the towels from our apartment.I find your resume onlineand critique it harshly for a ghost audience. I come up with new names for emotions, likeDISLODGED FITTED SHEET orDAM

      1 min read

    • Article

      Diaspora Sonnets

      Sep 1, 2022

      The old men drink their spritzers and gossipunder awnings. Red hued and blustery, like two roosters on the side of a road.Skyward they crane their necks and laugh, sometimes they wonder about kings and future kingsand how the muscles peer from their

      2 min read

    • Article

      The Rails

      Dec 1, 2021

      The Rails
      1 min read

    • Article

      Burning Up

      Dec 1, 2021

      Burning Up
      9 min read

    • Article

      Four Poems

      Mar 1, 2022

      When making an axe handlethe pattern is not far off. —Gary Snyder My mother was either horizontal on the couch,or vertical, a plumb line from her spineto the top of her head to the ceiling that spinswhen she drinks, alcohol and an air bubbletrapped,

      4 min read

    • Article

      The Joy Of The Illegible

      Sep 1, 2023

      Books I Do Everything I’m Told by Megan Fernandes Tin House Books, 2023 paperback, 104 pages, $16.95 Megan Fernandes’ latest collection of poems, I Do Everything I’m Told, begins with an epigraph from Gwendolyn Brooks: “Sit where the light corrupts y

      6 min read

    • Article

      Five Poems

      Mar 1, 2022

      Five Poems
      5 min read

    • Article

      Rot

      Sep 2, 2022

      Rot
      1 min read

    • Article

      Two Poems

      Jul 1, 2023

      nothing so lonely as the hospitalbed. nothing so lonely as beinglonely in the hospital bed. nothingso jargoned as the body sproutingbrush tuber cannula or rue. nothingso pure as the abstracted by which Imean exploded body, the body thatholds its skin

      1 min read

    • Article

      Two Poems

      Jan 1, 2022

      cook lobster. They’re loyal sea rubies and deservebetter than a pinch of lemon and herbed butter. But I’ll shower hot enough to brighten you, makezinnias of your shoulders and steal the towels when it’s over, your water-tattooed back a garden before

      3 min read

    • Article

      Decision [de-, Caedere-, Latin]

      Mar 1, 2024

      Life is a series of decisions to move this poster to another room; that ass to some other chair.There isn’t really much to it, and then we’re done for. There was a time I wrote, seriously, about grief. I wonder whyI can’t do that anymore. Maybe it’s

      2 min read

    • Article

      Four Poems

      Mar 1, 2022

      Early such darkness, these oncoming nights& sure, I’m dull & even slow to concedehow mornings make equal, swerving measuresthere between those foremost shadowsalong the fence, amid the chickens & nerve,sheep & their indifference to any pair of foolsh

      3 min read

    • Article

      On Writing Poems Facing Into The Broken World

      Mar 1, 2020

      Kaveh Akbar and Jane Hirshfield have been in a running e-mail conversation since January 2016, when Akbar first contacted Hirshfield about doing an interview in his Divedapper series, before his first, widely acclaimed book, Calling a Wolf a Wolf (Al

      16 min read

    • Article

      Bob Ross Paints Your Portrait

      Jun 14, 2022

      Today we’re going to get to work on the detailsof your expression. And believe it or not,the only colors we’re going to use will be blacker than most blacks. We’ll use a black canvasand just a single finger instead of a brush.So let’s take and dab th

      3 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Is, Is Not

    3.5/5

    3 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Is, Is Not - Tess Gallagher

      i

      Am I real? Do I exist?

      And will I really die?

      OSIP MANDELSTAM

      IN THE COMPANY OF FLOWERS

      all day, coming away

      like an ordinary person who

      might have been at a till. Thinking

      as I dug into earth of my mother

      who, when my youngest brother

      died, was taken in

      by beauty, not as consolation

      but because she found him

      there as she made the garden.

      Each day she tended it

      he kept a little more

      of her. If ever I doubt

      the power of the dead, I walk

      her garden in May, rhododendrons

      so red, so white their clustered goblets

      spill translucent tongues of light at the rim

      of the sea. And it is ordinary

      to be so accompanied,

      so fused to the silence of all that,

      as it eludes me, as I am taken in.

      Surely my reappearance must wear

      the borrowed abundance she

      gave me that morning

      I was born.

      ALMOST LOST MOMENT

      coming back in an incidental way,

      claiming to be the most beautiful

      moment of my life: braiding

      her waist-length white hair by the Pacific

      at La Push. Hand over

      hand, the three-way crossings

      of apportioned strands, and quiet,

      her head braced against my gentle pull

      as she gazes out. Both in our sea-minds.

      And quiet.

      Quiet.

      for Georgia Morris Bond, my mother

      AMBITION

      We had our heads down

      baiting hooks—three wild salmon

      already turned back that morning

      for the in-season hatchery silvers

      now out there somewhere

      counting their luck—when

      under our small boat the sea

      gave a roll like a giant turning over

      in sleep, lifting us high so I thought

      an ocean liner or freighter had

      slipped up on us, the sudden heft

      of its bow-wave, our matchstick toss

      to depth we’d taken

      for granted in order to venture there

      at all. But when I looked up expecting

      collision, the quash of water from their

      blowholes pushed to air in unison,

      a pair of gray whales not two hundred

      yards away: Look up! I shouted so you

      didn’t miss the fear-banishing

      of their passage that made

      nothing of us. Not even death could touch

      any mind of us. It was all beauty and

      mystery, the kind that picks you up

      effortlessly and darts through you

      for just those moments

      you aren’t even there. Held that way

      and their tons-weight bodies plunged

      silently under again, I turned for proof

      to you, but the clarity was passing through

      as a swell under us again and the sky of the sea

      set us down like a toy.

      And that’s the way it was, and it wasn’t

      any other way—just looking at each other,

      helpless one thought and huge with power

      the next. We baited up,

      dropped our herring into slack water—two

      ghosts fishing for anything but whales.

      for my brother Tom

      YOUR DOG PLAYING WITH A COYOTE

      —a notion not out of place

      where bears hunch under apple

      trees at night like rocking chairs

      with volition. She’s lonely, your dog,

      and the young coyote waits for her at the edge

      of the forest. Not sinister that tongue

      laughing wildness when she

      dashes forward to feign attack, then glances

      away. If your dog chases too far,

      what then? Joining wilder kin to rove

      at borders suddenly treacherous? What does

      dusk have to do with their marauding?

      Some ancient tincture of permission

      allows the edge of night

      to blend where wild and tame

      exchange fur in one naked, human

      mind—my thinking toward them

      to grant wilderness its emissary.

      Coyote, whose very appearance takes

      whisper to its highest pitch—then breaks

      the play-form of invitation to withdraw,

      shedding with a guiltless, backward

      look, this unbidden fringe-work—to rejoin

      her serial moons, her black on black

      of night, our freshened

      immensity.

      ABILITY TO HOLD TERRITORY

      The chilla is the fox Charles Darwin

      killed by walking up and hitting it

      on the head with a hammer

      while it was "intently watching

      the activity" of the Beagle’s crew.

      Notoriously unwary of humans, "It

      doesn’t know to hide from hunters."

      In effect, it steps off the ladder

      of evolution where "ability to hold territory

      supersedes ability to adapt

      to environmental changes."

      The women huddle in the Men’s

      in the Turkish airport. Gun shots

      ring out, then massive explosions. Escaping

      down a stairwell, the talisman

      of a woman’s scarf, then a smeared

      footprint where blood outleaped

      its borders.

      It wasn’t the first time a wrongheaded

      freedom had taken the floor

      of our assembly. The surprise was

      that the head actually rolled down the aisle

      toward my bench where my foot

      took hold of me and kicked it

      mercilessly out the door.

      Now we are all tossed out

      into straw, or worse,

      a ditch. I study my watch as if

      a mistake in time would

      repeal what was inconceivable

      only days before. Hammer

      of the mind, come down

      on the glass of this hour, and

      spread alarm! Each choice

      does small or large harm, but

      to do nothing is to cease

      to exist and banish worlds.

      BLIND DOG/SEEING GIRL

      She travels by guess and by

      mistakes she corrects

      by going back the wrong

      way, bumping sometimes

      painfully into things with her

      whole face like houses and

      tree trunks and door

      jambs. She can’t get there

      except by correction, extending

      her chin against the stairs as if

      they were the stars, to caress

      each oncoming cement

      ledge. If she didn’t venture

      and get it wrong and eventually

      right, she’d be at a standstill, marooned

      out there under the apple trees or

      hemlock. Don’t

      carry her, says the girl to

      herself, you’ll mix her up

      in there in her dark-finding

      where she’s collecting

      mistakes and self-forgiveness,

      making good on excited passages

      where it seems each turnabout

      yields a fresh chance at getting back

      to the girl. And what is the

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1