The Persistence of Rivers: An Essay on Moving Water - Softcover

Townsend, Alison

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1941681832 ISBN 13: 9781941681831

Publisher: Burrow Press, 2017

Synopsis

Alison Townsend shapes the memories within this book like the meditative and meandering rivers that inspired them. The Persistence of Rivers evokes the naturalism of Thoreau and Dillard, yet Townsend’s prose remains masterfully singular in its subject, lyricism, and poignancy. Spanning decades from the 1950s to the present, the book considers the impact of rivers at pivotal moments in Townsend’s life, examining issues of landscape, loss, memory, healing, and the search for home.

About this title

About the Author

Alison Townsend is the author of two books of poetry, The Blue Dress: Poems and Prose Poems, and Persephone in America, as well as two poetry chapbooks, And Still the Music, and What the Body Knows. Her writing has received a Pushcart Prize, The Crab Orchard Open Poetry Competition Prize, a Wisconsin Literary Arts Grant, and many other awards. Her poetry has appeared numerous journals and been anthologized in Best American Poetry 2006 and the 2010 Pushcart Prize. Her essays have appeared in Brevity, Chautauqua, Parabola, The Southern Review, and Zone 3, among others, been listed as notable in Best American Essays 2014, 2015, and 2016, and received special mention in the 2017 Pushcart Prize. Professor Emerita of English and Women's Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, she lives in the farm country outside Madison. Author's home: Whitewater, WI

From the Inside Flap

"I was enthralled... The Persistence of Rivers is sensual and luminous as the bodies of water that Alison Townsend brings so sharply into focus throughout." --Vanessa Blakeslee PRAISE FOR ALISON TOWNSEND'S THE BLUE DRESS "Intimate, warm, and observant " -- Mark Doty "Townsend's articultion of sorrow has always cast an aura, of beauty, and deepest, truest instruction." -- Sharon Doubiago

Edition details

• Publisher: Burrow Press
• Publication date: 2017
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1941681832
• ISBN 13: 9781941681831
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 76