{"id":13684,"date":"2019-06-12T16:28:59","date_gmt":"2019-06-12T20:28:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fourwaybooks.com\/site\/?page_id=13684"},"modified":"2022-12-01T13:28:47","modified_gmt":"2022-12-01T18:28:47","slug":"levee","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/fourwaybooks.com\/site\/levee\/","title":{"rendered":"Levee"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Poetry | paper | $15.95 | 128 pgs |
\nISBN-13: 978-1-945588-41-9<\/p>\n

Add to Cart<\/a><\/p>\n

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\n[column col=”3\/4″]<\/p>\n

Levee<\/em><\/h1>\n

Paul Otremba<\/h2>\n

The poems in Paul Otremba\u2019s Levee<\/em> explore the intersection between the ecological, the political, and the personal in a world built on oil and greed. The city of Houston is at once backdrop and metaphor for the ways
\nin which violence\u2014both natural and manmade\u2014have become part and parcel of twenty-first century life. \u201cIt\u2019s a luxury to be this calm,\u201d Otremba writes in the opening poem, a held-breath between the disastrous effects of hurricanes and cancer. Yet Otremba\u2019s exquisite lines manage to wrest meaning from the devastation wrought by both global warming and a terminal illness: \u201cIf there is a lesson \/ on how not to worry, it\u2019s that you\u2019re not stuck only being one thing, \/the multitudes in me and the multitudes in you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Expectancy<\/strong><\/p>\n

He places a pillow across my lap,
\nthen lets loose a joke about saving dignity.
\nHe wants to check my scar, and the whole team
\ndescends from their orbit to watch his cold hand
\ntest a red line the length of my stomach
\nthat closes where the stomach had been.
\nFrom their fingernail\u2019s slice of cratered moon
\nthey assemble the daily surgical theater
\nwhere I come and go, lifting and dropping my gown.
\nHis fingers probe around the plate, reading auguries.
\nThen like a held breath retreating from stench,
\nthe team deflates, the demonstration ended.
\nBut today, there\u2019s special providence:
\nthe pathology drops like a winged thing
\nwounded. Like the one I\u2019d found on the patio,
\nits feet still curled around some absent branch.
\nThe sparrow had the look of a toppled-over
\nsleepwalker. My hand stuck in protective layers
\nof thin plastic grocery bags, I was afraid
\nthat what I touched would spark, would wake and fly,
\neven though that\u2019s what I should have wanted
\nfor it. No readiness can cure that.<\/p>\n

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About the Author<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[column col=”1\/4″] Poetry | paper | $15.95 | 128 pgs | ISBN-13: 978-1-945588-41-9 Add to Cart [\/column] [column col=”3\/4″] Levee Paul Otremba The poems in Paul Otremba\u2019s Levee explore the intersection between the ecological, the political, and the personal in a world built on oil and greed. The city of Houston is at once backdrop […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-13684","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourwaybooks.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/13684","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourwaybooks.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourwaybooks.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourwaybooks.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourwaybooks.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13684"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/fourwaybooks.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/13684\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18686,"href":"https:\/\/fourwaybooks.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/13684\/revisions\/18686"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourwaybooks.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}