FA L L & W I N T E R 2 0 0 6 ■ U N I V E R S I T Y O F P I T T S B U R G H P R E S S 3
Robin Becker, pr<strong>of</strong>essor <strong>of</strong> English and women’s studies at The Pennsylvania State <strong>University</strong>, is the author <strong>of</strong> six collections <strong>of</strong> poetry, including The Horse Fair, All-American Girl, and Giacometti’s Dog. In 2002, the Frick Art and Historical Center in Pittsburgh published Venetian Blue, a limited-edition chapbook <strong>of</strong> Becker’s art poems. Becker is the recipient <strong>of</strong> individual fellowships from the Bunting Institute, the Massachusetts Cultural Council, and the National Endowment for the Arts. In 2000, she won the George Atherton Award for Excellence in Teaching from Penn State. Photo <strong>by</strong> Miriam Goodman POETRY AUGUST 88 PP. ■ 6 X 8.5 0-8229-5931-3 ■ PAPER $14.00t PITT POETRY SERIES Domain <strong>of</strong> Perfect Affection Robin Becker “Robin Becker achieves what may be one <strong>of</strong> the early twenty first century’s most difficult accomplishments—to write a credible poetry <strong>of</strong> affirmation. In the doing, she doesn’t pretty up the world. Rather, she finds language that embraces our dualities, our manyselved presences, regularly demonstrating her kind <strong>of</strong> perfect affection: ‘Come up for the lunch I made you, / O handy lover, <strong>with</strong> your retractable blade, / your small drill, your paint brushes bristling.’” —Stephen Dunn “A deft painter <strong>of</strong> scenes and lives, Robin Becker follows a thread <strong>of</strong> comedy in the dark la<strong>by</strong>rinth <strong>of</strong> the family saga. We could call that thread compassion. We could call it wisdom. Becker is an afficionado <strong>of</strong> old and odd paintings, <strong>of</strong> summer and seashore, <strong>of</strong> friends, lovers, and autumn heat, <strong>of</strong> whatever may ‘disappoint and delight.’ She is a lover <strong>of</strong> life and language—stubborn as they come. Domain <strong>of</strong> Perfect Affection is a poet in her prime.” —Alicia Suskin Ostriker “In Domain <strong>of</strong> Perfect Affection, Robin Becker has again <strong>written</strong> poetry that, in Wordsworth’s phrase, ‘is carried alive into the heart <strong>by</strong> passion.’ She bears forth her father’s wisdom, ‘The most important thing: / to love your work,’ and in poem after poem that love is obvious: ‘How many words for glisten, sparkle, glister?’ Yet her passion for language spells a deeper passion to ‘inhabit / a place <strong>of</strong> such tenderness’ where the poet might ‘accept myself / for what I am—androgynous, sublime.’ Line <strong>by</strong> line, these poems create such a place, a domain where celebrations ‘<strong>of</strong> our communal selves, / sheared <strong>of</strong> the theoretical,’ quicken our lives, endowing us <strong>with</strong> ‘the dignity / <strong>of</strong> exile.’ In poems <strong>of</strong> startling clarity and intensity, in poems <strong>of</strong>—yes!—androgynous sublimity, Robin Becker reveals herself to be one <strong>of</strong> our most generous and essential poets.” —Michael Waters Praise for The Horse Fair: “This generous poet is never less than attentive and responsive to the world that surrounds her.”—Carmela Ciuraru, New York Times Book Review “Becker’s painstaking, emphatic use <strong>of</strong> language celebrates a patient yet intrepid dedication to art as well as the indomitable spirit <strong>of</strong> life, human or otherwise, in the face <strong>of</strong> oppression and death.”—Floyd Collins, West Branch InDomain <strong>of</strong> Perfect Affection, Robin Becker explores the conditions under which we experience and resist pleasure: in beauty salon, summer camp, beach, backyard, or museum; New York or New Mexico. “The Mosaic injunction against / the graven image” inspires meditations on drawings <strong>by</strong> Dürer, Evans, Klee, Marin, and del Sarto. To the consolations <strong>of</strong> art and human intimacy, Becker brings playfulness—“Worry stole the kayaks and soured the milk”—suffused <strong>with</strong> self-knowledge: “Worry wraps her long legs / around me, promises to be mine forever.” In “The New Egypt,” the narrator mines her family’s legacy: “From my father I learned the dignity / <strong>of</strong> exile and the fire <strong>of</strong> acquisition, / not to live in places lightly, but to plant / the self like an orange tree in the desert.” Becker’s shapely stanzas—couplets, tercets, quatrains, pantoum, sonnet, syllabics—subvert her colloquial diction, creating a seamless merging <strong>of</strong> subject and form. Luminous, sensual, these poems <strong>of</strong>fer sharp pleasures as they argue, elegize, mourn, praise, and sing. 4 FA L L & W I N T E R 2 0 0 6 ■ UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH PRESS