Heavenly Bodies (Crab Orchard Poetry) - Softcover

"This is a poetry of woundedness and defiance. "Heavenly Bodies "has a stark integrity in its refusals to beguile or comfort; no one could call it uplifting. Yet there is something bracing, even encouraging, in the hungry survival of this sister of Sylvia Plath and in her self-insistence: "I do not give up my strangeness for anyone"." --Mark Halliday "Cynthia Huntington's "Heavenly Bodies "is the most searing and frightening book of poetry I have read in years. The poems arise from pain and illness, from the body's rebellions and betrayals, and yet they are also curiously exhilarating, even redemptive: perhaps because they are utterly free of self-pity, and find the means--hrough the sustained ferocity and invention of their language--to transform suffering into a vision so bold it must be called prophetic. "Heavenly Bodies "is a remarkable collection, on every level." --David Wojahn, author of "World Tree" This is a poetry of woundedness and defiance. "Heavenly Bodies "has a stark integrity in its refusals to beguile or comfort; no one could call it uplifting. Yet there is something bracing, even encouraging, in the hungry survival of this sister of Sylvia Plath and in her self-insistence: "I do not give up my strangeness for anyone." Mark Halliday Cynthia Huntington s "Heavenly Bodies "is the most searing and frightening book of poetry I have read in years. The poems arise from pain and illness, from the body s rebellions and betrayals, and yet they are also curiously exhilarating, even redemptive: perhaps because they are utterly free of self-pity, and find the means hrough the sustained ferocity and invention of their language to transform suffering into a vision so bold it must be called prophetic. "Heavenly Bodies "is a remarkable collection, on every level. David Wojahn, author of "World Tree"" This is a poetry of woundedness and defiance. Heavenly Bodies has a stark integrity in its refusals to beguile or comfort; no one could call it uplifting. Yet there is something bracing, even encouraging, in the hungry survival of this sister of Sylvia Plath and in her self-insistence: I do not give up my strangeness for anyone. Mark Halliday Cynthia Huntington s Heavenly Bodies is the most searing and frightening book of poetry I have read in years. The poems arise from pain and illness, from the body s rebellions and betrayals, and yet they are also curiously exhilarating, even redemptive: perhaps because they are utterly free of self-pity, and find the means hrough the sustained ferocity and invention of their language to transform suffering into a vision so bold it must be called prophetic. Heavenly Bodies is a remarkable collection, on every level. David Wojahn, author of World Tree"

In this blistering collection of lyric poems, Cynthia Huntington gives an intimate view of the sexual revolution and rebellion in a time before the rise of feminism. Heavenly Bodies is a testament to the duality of sex, the twin seductiveness and horror of drug addiction, and the social, political, and personal dramas of America in the 1960s. From the sweetness of purloined blackberries to the bitter taste of pills, the ginger perfume of the Hawaiian Islands to the scream of the winter wind, Huntington's fearless and candid poems offer a feast for the senses that is at once mystical and earthy, cynical and surreal. Echoing throughout are some of the most famous-and infamous-voices of the times: Joan Baez and Charles Manson, Frank Zappa and Betty Friedan. Jinns and aliens beckon while cities burn and revolutionaries thunder for change. At the center is the semiautobiographical Suzy Creamcheese, sensual and rebellious, both almighty and powerless in her sexuality. Achingly tender yet brutally honest, Heavenly Bodies is an unflinching reflection on the most personal of physical and emotional journeys.