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[Review of] Diane Glancy. Claiming Breath

Abstract

In her seventh book of poetry, Diane Glancy presents a moving account of the portrait of the artist as Native, woman, and poet. Of German, English, and Cherokee descent, Glancy\u27s prose poetry, as she states in her Preface, is often about being in the middle ground between two cultures, not fully a part of either. I write with a split voice, often experimenting with language until the parts equal some sort of a whole. The Sixty-three poems in this volume (with the last composed of eight parts) are a non-linear journey, a physical and psychological traveling through the senses and intellect. The details of the poet\u27s life accumulate initially through journal-like entries that set forth the parameters of her life: a failed marriage, two children, her many teaching trips across the Midwest as artist-in-residence, her home twice vandalized by thieves, and her mother\u27s losing battle against cancer. Ultimately, the book is about writing, or wrioting, as the title of one piece suggests, and the search to explore my memories & their relational aspects to the present. I was born between 2 heritages & I want to explore the empty space, that place-between-2-places, that walk-in-2-worlds. I want to do it in a new way

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