Boulay, Charlotte

Six India Poems

Canton, NY: Grass River Press, 2000. Limited First Edition. Sewn Binding. Signed by Charlotte Boulay. “Children walking up the road from Koolri Bazaar / and rain I am moving across the sky like a light edge of / darkness. / red tin roofs, wet clothes spread / across them bright as anything / your eyes rainy no further. / a smaller place the sky goes / as far as / the valleys, stretching like arms and / arms enclose the edge of morning. / how you talk again, words echoing in the heavy fog, / and whose Tuesday / is this and what did you do and what. from the clouds come / a band of schoolchildren / bright in their blue uniforms, knee socks / and pleated skirts collars twisted O mother your children / hang from your skirt like little flames. Love exists / in no smaller space, between your ribs, / between the letters of your name.”--Charlotte Boulay, pg. 1. Charlotte Boulay is an American poet, technical writer, and labor organizer. She grew up in the Boston area attended St. Lawrence University, and earned her MFA from our own beloved University of Michigan, where she taught composition and creative writing for five years. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, Slate, The Boston Review, and Crazyhorse, among other journals. Foxes on the Trampoline is her first collection of poems, and was published by Ecco Press in April, 2014. She lives with her husband in Philadelphia. Offered today is the 2000 poem Six India Poems. A warm, visceral, rich, and emotionally resonant account of her trip to India, Six India Poems is a masterclass in the ephemeral vignette and is infused with a traveler’s sensibility; with a reverence for language and a tasteful pinch of surrealism, Boulay creates a beautiful portrait of India in six mosaic poems. The lyrical, sometimes saccharine poems render the streets and people of India in a vivid, yet ephemeral way, like seeing the skyline of a city through a veil of fog. The handmade paper which constitutes this collection gives it the feel of some sort of ancient text produced in a time before the printing press, or large-scale industrial capital. Overall this collection is not only exceedingly rare, but extremely literarily rich and endlessly enjoyable. From the collection of Albert Glover (b. 1942), the great American scholar, bibliographer, author & publisher who is the foremost living authority on literary giant Charles Olson (1910-1970; our favorite Maximus Obscurantist), with whom we're honored to be acquainted. Large-format chapbook in Sewn binding. Signed in thin black ink at title page by the author beneath her printed name. Limited First edition “50 numbered copies. This book is copy number 26” as stated at colophon. In very fine condition with only the faintest wear to fine edges. Very Fine. [Item #8321]

Price: $75.00