Brief stories share the experiences and outlook of Stout Mama, a feminist teacher

The Adventures of Stout Mama

JAMES, Sibyl

Literature & Fiction

Papier Mache Pr

United States

The White Junk of Love, Again

Poetry. In these translitics of the sonnets of sixteenth century poet Louise Labe, James's contemporary voice allows Labe's struggle with passion and eroticism to surface with new life. "James creates a jazzy, tough-minded voice that is easy to imagine as that of an avant-garde poet of 1550 transported to the late 20th century"--Seattle Times.

Calyx Books

Poetry. In these translitics of the sonnets of sixteenth century poet Louise Labe, James's contemporary voice allows Labe's struggle with passion and eroticism to surface with new life. "James creates a jazzy, tough-minded voice that is easy to imagine as that of an avant-garde poet of 1550 transported to the late 20th century"--Seattle Times.

Poetry

In China with Harpo and Karl

Wry essays from a US feminist in China

Biographies & Memoirs

Community & Culture

The "range" of the poems in Siby James' new collection, The Grand Piano Range, is political and personal as well as geographic. Many of the poems are grounded in the Pacific Northwest: Alaska, Oregon, and, most often, Washington where James has been a longtime resident. James is interested in the back roads, small towns, and good bars where a barmaid "shares Wild Turkey on the house" and a neighbor is the guy who takes your shift the night your baby's born. But this range extends beyond the Pacific Northwest with poems powered by political investigations. They protest the loss of squatter's rights in Appalachia. They speak of both the exuberance of Pele, goddess of volcanoes in Hawaii, and the privations experienced by Chinese laborers there. They recount the disasters of the civil wars and US complicity in them that ravaged Central America in the 1980s. Closer to home, there are poems that confront the American gap between rich and poor. In this collection, the personal and the political clearly coincide. There are plenty of love poems here, but usually embedded in larger contexts. The invitation of "Going Places" includes tramps on a train; "Intersection" is the Platonic love of a Jewish tailor who wants to make a coat to protect his American clien from pain. This collection provides both a lyric and a narrative account of the late 20th century from a specific American point of view.

The Grand Piano Range

Black Heron Press

Hard Goods & Hot Platters is saturated with American popular music. Its lines carry a rhythm of their own, alternately relaxed, looping, urgent, melancholic, and Eros-driven. We get an ¿Homage to Mick Jagger¿ and a note by a Springsteen groupie, and encounter a notable roadhouse cheek by jowl with cheap motels. Billie Holliday gets her own poem, richly deserved. And the Ramones rate a cameo. According to Sibyl James, ¿Love¿s some player on the summer fire escape,¿ and I¿m inclined to believe her. Nor do I doubt the wisdom of these lines: ¿cable and bible / love, save us from both.¿ These are poems both real and imagined, full of yearning, regret, fleeting fulfillment, and burning desire.									¿klipschutz						¿author of A Visit to the Ranch & other poems¿

Hard Goods & Hot Platters

Author]

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by JAMES, Sibyl. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by JAMES, Sibyl

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by JAMES, Sibyl. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Adventures of Stout Mama

The Adventures of Stout Mama

The White Junk of Love, Again

The White Junk of Love, Again

In China with Harpo and Karl

In China with Harpo and Karl

The Grand Piano Range

Hard Goods & Hot Platters