Tea is a series of poems about survival. "To survive is an astonishing gift," D. A. Powell writes. "The price of that gift is memory." Visually arresting, Tea is an experimental poem-cycle with traditional formal techniques built into its "wild" surface.
The first section consists of portraits of young men, friends or former lovers, who have contracted or have died of AIDS. Pushing into the margins of culture as well as of the page, Powell combines all manner of subject and tone to create a work part memory play, part episodic novel, part funny pages -- even part dance. Poems sing from the mouths of actor Sal Mineo, Batman's sidekick Robin, and the little girl from The Exorcist. A fugue for a disco singer, a letter to the poet's dog, an ode to the 1980s and a confession of love to a public toilet vibrate between the comic and the tragic. Like its central metaphor, Tea is gossipy, swirling, steamy, and sober.
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From the Publisher:
9 x 6 trim. 1 illus. Casebound. LC 97-44599
About the Author:
D. A. POWELL is a graduate of the Iowa Writers Workshop and recipient of a 1997 Paul Engle Fellowship from the James Michener Foundation. He lives in San Francisco. His newest collection is Lunch.
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
- PublisherWesleyan University Press
- Publication date1998
- ISBN 10 081956334X
- ISBN 13 9780819563347
- BindingHardcover
- Edition number1
- Number of pages88
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