Poetry

Precipitates

Employing some of the link-and-shift techniques of the Japanese renku, the poems in Precipitates repeatedly allude to major themes in Ecclesiastes, while speaking, under the influence of the Buddhist “Heart Sutra,” to the hunger for perfection, to embrace change and find release from attachment. Weather serves as a metaphor for our headlong fall into aging and death. "With the precision of the minute hand and the broad, generous sweep of the hour, the poems in Precipitates are the result of a skilled and patient practitioner. Debra Kang Dean centers her mind and heart at the point where 'lines/intersect: then, now, and then...', distillations from living fully present to the moment deposited as 'some new thing.../in the fragile nets we weave.' Dean weaves quiet magic, fine poems. - Cathy Song "In a waka on impermanence, Zen master Dogen wrote, 'The world? Moonlit/Drops shaken/From the crane's bill.' The precipitates in these poems - snow, hail, rain - join what takes form, the patchwork we call our selves. Debra Kang Dean's three-part seasonal diary forms the core of this book. Here is poetry that, using techniques from renku composition, honors the ordinary, leaping and shifting from moment to moment. It is verse that condenses and compresses until the poet sees acutely, clarifying 'to the no, and al/so to the yes in this state/of transition." - Margaret Gibson

i. reflected light

On a two-lane, near the shoulder, bracing
itself against speed, a turtle's green face that is my face.

At the heart of the desert, an oasis
amid fasting and prayer. Lean face this is my face,

though I hunger, I am singing these praises
that rise like incense. A serene face, that is my face.

Not to the swift goes the race; time flies—and erases,
says the moon, sweet face that is my face.

I am walking into the dark wood's embrace
by a reflected light. Unseen face, that is my fate.

© BOA Editions, Ltd 2003

Available editions:
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Price: $13.95

FormatPaperback

Publication DateOctober 1, 2003

ISBN1-929918-43-7

$13.95

About the Author

Debra Kang Dean is the author of three collections of poetry, including , Precipitates (BOA, 2003). Her work has appeared in many journals and anthologies, including The Best American Poetry 1999 (Scribner, 1999), The New American Poets: A Bread Loaf Anthology (Middlebury, 2000) and Urban Nature: Poems about Wildlife in the City (Milkweed Editions, 2000). She is on the faculty of the Spalding University brief-residency MFA Program, and is a contributing editor for Tar River Poetry. For more information about Debra Kang Dean, visit debrakangdean.com.