Psyche's Scroll
by Karla Linn Merrifield
Poetry and Prose 152 pages
Price $14.00
ISBN: 13: 978-1-948461-01-6
Publisher: The Poetry Box
To Order: www.thepoetrybox.com
ABOUT THE BOOK:
Psyche's Scroll is a post-postmodern epic poem that pushes at the frontiers
of what is possible and invites you to participate in a woman's psychosocial
self-analysis as she struggles to move through and beyond psychological
trauma. Become a voyeur of the mind in this book of sometimes bawdy,
ballsy language, as well as sharp insights into human behavior. Psyche's
Scroll is myth making; it's a love story with a geeky streak. It's also
a schizophrenic story: half raw emotion, half coolly cerebral—a story
which American master poet William Heyen referred to as "sui generis."
ADVANCE PRAISE:
In Psyche's Scroll, Karla Linn Merrifield reveals a timely and deeply felt
extended poem about the un-scrolling of the soul in all of its forms—id,
ego, and super-ego. Through the poet's brilliant use of persona, mythol-
ogy, symbolism, and allusion, the human psyche comes to life as Psyche
immortal. Here are found libido and chastity, dream state and reality, grati-
fication and conscience—all metaphorically moving between the outer life
and the search for an inner life of creativity. As Merrifield writes, "The brio
of the mind is its will to bliss; the élan of the brain when pleasured/is poetry."
—Andrea L. Watson, Collecting Life: Poets on Objects Known and Imagined;
co-founder, 3: A Taos Press
Psyche's Scroll takes an experimental approach—in both language and structure—
to that most obscure of subjects: the true self. In exchanges reminiscent of John
Berryman's Dream Songs, poet Karla Linn Merrifield examines the fractures which
paradoxically lead to a more integrated whole. This is not the conventional
approach to suffering and healing, but rather a poetic one, where a trickster may
appear in a '65 Corvette convertible and take us all along for the ride.
—Miriam Sagan, author of GEOGRAPHIC: A Memoir of Time and Space
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Karla Linn Merrifield, a nine-time Pushcart-Prize nominee and National
Park Artist-in-Residence, has had 600+ poems appear in dozens of journals
and anthologies. With Psyche's Scroll, she has thirteen books to her credit.
Her previous book, Bunchberries, More Poems of Canada, is a sequel to
Godwit: Poems of Canada (FootHills), which received the Eiseman Award
for Poetry. She is assistant editor and poetry book reviewer for The Centri-
fugal Eye. She is currently at work on several manuscripts, including an
over-the-top confessional poetry satire; a collection of elegies for her belated,
beloved husband; and the diary of Gizmo Girl whom readers first meet in
Psyche's Scroll. Visit her blog, Vagabond Poet Redux. Google her name to
learn more.
FROM THE BOOK:
The Label
by Karla Linn Merrifield
You're probably wondering which one.
Well, so was I. Are we talking about the discreet one
stitched on your Versace cashmere?
I don't think so. The embossed one gilding
your crystal bowl full of Beluga caviar?
Doubtful.
The memento mori slipped into a bottle
of Château Haut-Brion 1984 in your wine diary?
Absolutely not.
Take time out, take Time,
taking care to step out of velvet boxes,
step back from your monied tableau. |
