Back Through Interruption

Kate Northrop

• Publisher: The Kent State University Press
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9780873387415
• eBook ISBN: 9781612777764
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Poetry
• Index: Literature

Kate Northrop's Back Through Interruption is a deeply moving and thought-provoking collection of poetry. It takes the reader through a world that is at once beautiful and tragic, sacrosanct and profane.

"Kate Northrop's elegant, intelligent, wonderfully plotted first book, Back Through Interruption, has been born under the sign of the double helix and is governed by that shape. These are poems of being two: woman and man, daughter and mother, sister and sister. Like magnets they are held together by attraction or parted by force of opposition. In these poems, no matter what changes in the cast of characters, what is important is that they are all creatures in, and creations of, a text." —Lynn Emanuel, judge

"Kate Northrop's poems are drawn ineluctably to the place where passion and intelligence collide—and often they end with passion having fled and intelligence standing alone, surveying 'the way we travel into memory.' But Northrop's intelligence is so coruscating that it possesses all the passion of passion itself. 'I would be judged,' says a woman on the verge of adultery, 'and what was individual / would collapse under the burden / of a story.' But she is wrong. In these dazzling poems, individuals and their stories stand side by side, each making the other glow more brightly than they would alone." —Andrew Hudgins

Two

The Advice of the Dream

The dream that escaped the dream

went to live in a field. It was happy,

being undreamt, snapping dead sticks to add

to the fire it warmed itself around.

All night, in order to stay awake, it counted places.

How many oceans? How many mountain trails

lined with fern and woodchip, with flower?

And how many windows in the evening strangely lit?

The arms. Avenues. Estuaries

of ancient rivers, markets of spice, cumin

shifting in the barrels like sand,

like the desert, like anything in the open air.

It happens that the characters inside the dream

mill about, awkwardly, lost.

They’ve been knocked from the epic,

loosed from line of plot, from story.

The index cards have gone blank in their hands.

What’s my line? When do I enter? And where should I stand?

Evenings in the field, there’s the rustle

of autumnal husks, and beyond that,

a slight creek running. The advice of the dream?

It’s important to stay unattached

to an actual happening. This makes you fleet-footed,

able to be everywhere in the world.

Landscape with a Lake

Over & over you’ve returned, all summer,

troubled—

circling the lake, unable to decide,

and seeing that now the poor

echoes of laughter, the last rising voice

has looked around, shuddered

& disappeared,

what will you do? The reeds, softened

by algae, draw back, and the torn pods of cattails,

which during the day

surrounded the lake, return

to dusk. It’s a relief—isn’t it?—not having

to be seen.

(And do you feel less

obvious in the dark? Can you keep

forever, these secrets?)

Say I will return

to my wife and there go the herons you saw earlier, there go

memories of herons. Say I will not and something inside slips,

the particular arrangements, the shapes

& layer of clouds. Cirrus,

Cumulus—these are the lovely names,

the children. All summer you’ve returned,

listened to the sounds of water, listened

for a voice, a decision. But now

the wind is gathering in the north,

and now it is somewhere behind you,

where the leaves already are falling,

and the snow is coming on—thick

& deep. We will not be here

very long. Do not

tell the truth. Don’t leave me.

Landscape with House at the Edge of a Field

What was it that you wanted to say?

I’ve been waiting

and after all this time, nothing,

not a word. The geese

are crossing over

and your picture’s

on the table. Under the lamp. I won’t remove it,

and the women who visit look sour, or snicker

like idiots.

Where are you?

It shouldn’t matter, I know. You were only

some trouble—a few drinks

in a rusted-out pickup—

but I believed. Now, over the rows

of long broken stalks,

the sky goes grey. And the husks, those uneasy

remnants, begin to scratch

and rustle. Soon I will open the door

of the house. I will go in.

The Murderer

When he enters the room,

the walls darken,

just slightly, and a cloud

covers the lake. But nobody notices. The party’s

already started,

and our hosts, dreamlike, serve up the last

of the summer cocktails

to gorgeous guests. Outside,

floating across the terrace, white petals. An old yacht

slides by. The murderer

is touching the cream pitcher. He circles

through conversations, then he is turning over

his silver:

the salad fork, just once, the spoon. His hands

move exactly—cool, detached

like the light slanting lower across the lawn. Slowly, in

October,

the body will surface, the body

will reveal itself

and though nobody knows yet, some women,

after the capture, will say I could tell something

was different. I just kind of sensed it,

but that’s not true. Only the walls

knew he was sliding among us,

a secret celebrity, and trailing after him

drama, romance, disease.

A Glimpse of You, a Vision

What else was I doing in the kitchen

but watching?

For weeks I stood at the sink

long after the lights of the last car

had crossed the room. It was the end

of summer, and ahead, the hours

were shortening. I listened

in the dark where the curve of the faucet

glowed blue in the moonlight, familiar

& strange, like something

dredged up, like evidence. The wind stirred,

brushed the lowest branches of the oak

close against the house—and how else explain?—I knew it

the moment before,

then it was happening: You were there, sudden figure

at the window, your face a pale

white bloom, your shadow

vanishing in the yard through leaves.

Her Body in t...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Halftitle Page
• Title Page
• Dedication Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• One
• Two
• Three
• Author