Twice alive : an ecology of intimacies

Twice alive An ecology of intimacies

Forrest Gander, 1956-

Book - 2021

"In the searing ecological and love poems of his new collection, Twice Alive, Pulitzer Prize winner Forrest Gander addresses the exigencies of our historical moment and the intimacies, personal and environmental, that bind us to others and to the world. Drawing from his training in geology and on the tradition of Sangam literature, Gander invests these poems with an emotional intensity that illumines our deep-tangled interrelations. While conducting fieldwork with a celebrated mycologist, Gander links human intimacy with the transformative collaborations between species that compose lichens. His poems ask us provocative questions: Do we live twice? Can we really merge with others? Twice Alive combines what one critic (Alan Golding) cal...ls "the most searing love poems of the 21st century" with poems centered on the environment. Gander addresses personal and ecological trauma- several poems focus on the devastation wrought by wildfires in California where he lives-but his tone is overwhelmingly celebratory. Twice Alive is a book charged with exultation and tenderness"--

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Subjects
Poetry.
Genres
Poetry
Published
New York : New Directions Books 2021.
Language
English
Main Author
Forrest Gander, 1956- (author)
Physical Description
83 pages : illustrations ; 22 cm
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN
9780811230292
  • Author's note
  • Aubade
  • Unto Ourselves
  • Twice Alive
  • Sangam Acoustics
  • Forest
  • Immigrant Sea
  • In the Mountains
  • Pastoral
  • Wasteland (for Santa Rosa)
  • Aubade II
  • Unto Ourselves II: The Persistence of Dispersed Worlds
  • Twice Alive II: Tahoe National Forest
  • Sangam Acoustics II
  • Post-fire Forest
  • Sea: Night Surfing in Bolinas
  • In the Mountains, Placer County
  • Pastoral
  • Wasteland
  • Aubade III
  • Unto Ourselves III: To See What's There
  • Twice Alive III: Circumabulation of Mt. Tamalpais
  • The Redwoods
  • Rexroth's Cabin
  • "Sangam Acoustics: Confluence of Time, Space, and the Human Self" by N. Manu Chakravarthy
  • Acknowledgments
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Gander's resonant 15th collection (after Be With) vibrates with the thrill that comes with being open with another person. There are several poems titled "Sangam Acoustics" (sangam being "a gathering of individuals united in spirit"); aubades; a series titled "The Redwoods," in which slashes and words mimic the shapes of cross-sections of the trees (photographs of which are on facing pages); and several entries in which phrases are separated by bolded bullets. Gander's startlingly fresh observations ("the white-tufted foreheads/ of waves" and "the path riffled/by creamy edible morels and// poisonous false morels") counter a voice that says, "Don't be so/ rational." Moments of revelation ("I am here never to be peeled away"; "our identity... is combinatory") reenforce Gander's interest in the creation of new beings and in all living things. The book's meticulous structure, with its repetition of forms, allows the theme of rebirth ("as I find you within me--not fused, not/ bonded, but nested") to resonate in references to lichen, sangam, and sexual coupling. This is an ecologically aware, tender, and captivating work. (May)

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