Mary Jo Bang Livres

The collection immerses readers in the dreamlike experiences of Louise, a woman in love, accompanied by her enigmatic lover, Ham. With a blend of delicate and humorous language, the poems explore themes of love and mystery, echoing the lyrical traditions of late Romantic poets. The narrative flows freely, inviting readers to engage with its musicality and literary allusions as it traverses various landscapes. This postmodern verse-novel challenges perceptions and embraces the beauty of uncertainty in a world where anything can happen.

The collection delves into the profound grief following the death of the author's son, blending personal loss with universal themes of mourning. Through vivid and resilient poetry, it explores the haunting nature of memory and the interplay between the living and the dead. Each poem serves as a poignant examination of grief, transforming personal sorrow into a broader reflection on loss, making it both intimate and universally relatable.

Exploring the intersection of visual arts and poetry, this collection draws inspiration from various mediums, including paintings, film, and photographs. The poems journey through time, starting from a 2003 painting and reaching back to 1 B.C., examining the complex relationship between images and their representations. With a fresh perspective on art history, the author interweaves themes of Love, Death, Time, and Desire, showcasing a unique and thought-provoking approach that both entices and challenges readers.

A Film in Which I Play Everyone takes its title from a response David Bowie gave to a fan who asked if he had upcoming film roles. “I’m looking for backing for an unauthorized autobiography that I am writing,” Bowie answered. “Hopefully, this will sell in such huge numbers that I will be able to sue myself for an extraordinary amount of money and finance the film version in which I will play everybody.”Mary Jo Bang’s brilliant poems might be the soundtrack to such a movie, where the first-person speaker plays herself and everyone she’s ever met. She falls in and out of love with men, with women, and struggles to realize her ambitions while suffering crushing losses that give rise to dark thoughts. She’s drawn to stories that mirror her own those of women who struggle to speak in a world that would silence them. Embedded in these poems are those minor events that inexplicably persist in the memory and become the time she lied and had her mouth washed out with soap; the time someone said she wasn’t his “original idea of beauty but something. / Something he couldn’t quite // put his hands on”; the time she stood in indifferent moonlight on a pier as a cat lapped at the water. Tinged with dark humor and sharpened with keen camerawork, A Film in Which I Play Everyone stars Bang at her best, her most provocative.

Mary Jo Bang, celebrated for her late-blooming poetry, is praised for her beautiful and complex metaphors. Her work showcases a tension between clear form and the oscillation of emotions. Bang, an accomplished academic, has published several poetry collections, including the award-winning "Elegy," noted as a significant book of 2008 by The New York Times.