DESCRIPTION

Poetry. Sally Fisher’s poems speak for the value of unknowing. John Keats said that what we all need is a quality (Shakespeare had it) he called “negative capability”—the capacity to live in uncertainty. In fact, this collection savors the pleasures of unknowing, reminding us that Keats called “reaching after fact and reason” an “irritable habit.” Doubt can be comic; certainty humorless. Doubt is liberating; certainty slams doors. Everyday failure invites improvisation. “A good question will outlive every one of its answers.” A short central section presents ghazal-related poems inspired by the work of Urdu poet Ghalib. The ghazal tends to leave connections unspecified, making it an excellent vehicle for exploring uncertainty. Influence of the ghazal form echoes throughout the book.

AUTHOR BIO

Sally Fisher’s poems have appeared in Broadway Boogie, Field, Margie, Mid-American Review, New Directions, Poetry East, Poetry Daily, Shenandoah, The Sun, The Threepenny Review, Out of the Catskills and Just Beyond, and many other journals and anthologies. She has published two books for children (published by Viking and the Metropolitan Museum of Art) and a book about art for adults, The Square Halo (Harry M. Abrams). She worked for many years in publications at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and is a student of improvisation and stage clown as well as a puppet builder and sometime performer.

Author City: NEW YORK, NY USA