"How I would like to catch the world / at pure idea," writes Jorie Graham, for whom a bird may be an alphabet, and flight an arc. Whatever the occasion--and her work offers a rich profusion of them--the poems reach to where possession is not within us, where new names are needed and meaning enlarged. Hence, what she sees reminds her of what is missing, and what she knows suggests what she cannot. From any event, she arcs bravely into the farthest reaches of mind. Fast readers will have trouble, but so what. To the good reader afraid of complexity, I would offer the clear trust that must bond us to such signal poems as (simply to cite three appearing in a row) "Mother's Sewing Box," "For My Father Looking for My Uncle," and "The Chicory Comes Out Late August in Umbria." Finally, the poet's words again: ". . . you get / just what you want" and (just before that), "Just as / from time to time / we need to seize again / the whole language / in search of / better desires."--Marvin Bell Hybrids of Plants and of Ghosts By JORIE GRAHAM PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS Copyright © 1980 Princeton University Press All right reserved. ISBN: 978-0-691-01335-0 Contents The Way Things Work...........................................................3I Was Taught Three............................................................4Whore's Bath..................................................................6Ambergris.....................................................................7Tennessee June................................................................8Hybrids of Plants and of Ghosts...............................................9Angels for Cezanne............................................................10Cross-Stitch..................................................................11Strangers.....................................................................12Drawing Wildflowers...........................................................14Mother's Sewing Box...........................................................18For My Father Looking for My Uncle............................................19The Chicory Comes Out Late August in Umbria...................................20Syntax........................................................................21Tree Surgeons.................................................................22Netting.......................................................................23Jackpot.......................................................................24Harvest for Bergson...........................................................25Flooding......................................................................26One in the Hand...............................................................28An Artichoke for Montesquieu..................................................30Penmanship....................................................................31To Paul Eluard................................................................32Framing.......................................................................35For Mark Rothko...............................................................36The Geese.....................................................................38New Trees.....................................................................40On Why I Would Betray You.....................................................41Mirrors.......................................................................42Mimicry.......................................................................44Self-Portrait.................................................................46Girl at the Piano.............................................................48My Face in the Mirror Tells a Story of Delicate Ambitions.....................50Still Life....................................................................51How Morning Glories Could Bloom at Dusk.......................................55In High Waters................................................................56Over and Over Stitch..........................................................57The Slow Sounding and Eventual Reemergence Of.................................58The Nature of Evidence........................................................60Mind..........................................................................61Now the Sturdy Wind...........................................................62Lourdes: Syllables for a Friend...............................................63The Afterlife.................................................................64Pearls........................................................................65A Feather for Voltaire........................................................66Notes.........................................................................69 Chapter One THE WAY THINGS WORK is by admitting or opening away. This is the simplest form of current: Blue moving th