Vellum

Vellum, the exquisite debut collection from Matt Donovan, meditates on beauty, art, and the violence that is sometimes inherent in both. Here, he juxtaposes religious iconography with stories from history, biography, and personal narrative. In the poignant 'ÂÂœSaint Catherine in an O,'ÂÂ a knife bearsunlikely duality'ÂÂ”an object stirring with danger and grace. 'ÂÂœA man plays slide guitar / with his pocketknife, accompanying the words of his songs'ÂÂ”/ one about light, the Lord moving on water . . . / how blood, he knows, will make him whole.'ÂÂ In other poems, he reflects upon master artists, who capturedsimilar themes in their art though in different mediums. Brimming with poems that are quietly powerful, Vellum marks the arrival of a commanding new voice.

Matt Donovan is the winner of the 2006 Katherine Bakeless Nason Prize for poetry, selected by Mark Doty and awarded by Middlebury College and the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference. Donovan's poems have appeared in several journals, including Poetry, Agni, the Gettysburg Review, and the Kenyon Review. He received his MFA from New York University and in 2004 was awarded a literature fellowship from the National Endowment of the Arts. He is currently an assistant professor of creative writing at the College of Santa Fe and lives in New Mexico with his wife and son.

Foreword	p. ix

Pulling Down the Sky	p. 3
Saint Catherine in an O: A Song About Knives	p. 4
Montezuma's Painters	p. 6
Small Blessing for a Child	p. 8
Fumbling with a Field Guide on the Back Arroyo Trail	p. 9
Charlie Chaplin Dug Up & Ransomed: A Prayer	p. 11
Second Pilgrimage, Rodeo Nites	p. 12
Line	p. 14
Those Two Sketches by Severn in Italy	p. 15

A Partial Invocation of Our Days	p. 19
Night Train: A Listener's Guide	p. 21
The Keeper of Hands	p. 23
Portrait of the Whirlwind in Job as a Passenger Pigeon Flock	p. 25
The Scabbard of Limbs Means Flesh	p. 26
An East Toledo Map of Ash	p. 29
Thumb Trick	p. 31
Licking the El Greco	p. 34
A Blues About Wanting in the End	p. 35
What I Mean When I Say Blossom	p. 38

Shapes of Stone & Prayer	p. 43
Trenton, a Solmization, Two Rivers, a Few Tells	p. 45
Patio Lull with House Guest & View	p. 48
Swallowed Things	p. 50
To a Student Who Refuses to Read More of The Inferno After Learning None of It Is True	p. 52
A Damaged Fresco of The Massacre of the Innocents	p. 54
Audubon Diptych	p. 56
Towards the Sound of a Heron Stepping on Ice	p. 59
Notes	p. 66
Acknowledgments	p. 67
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.

What is included with this book?

The New copy of this book will include any supplemental materials advertised. Please check the title of the book to determine if it should include any access cards, study guides, lab manuals, CDs, etc.

The Used, Rental and eBook copies of this book are not guaranteed to include any supplemental materials. Typically, only the book itself is included. This is true even if the title states it includes any access cards, study guides, lab manuals, CDs, etc.

FREE SHIPPING

Amazon no longer offers textbook rentals. We do!

Summary

Author Biography

Table of Contents

Supplemental Materials