Ten, Firestone Jennifer

For poets, constraints are a bucket dipped into the sea of language, a way of measuring what otherwise can seem like infinity. Firestone sets up a constraint to keep her alive and in time: write 10 lines a day--no matter what. To convey the fullness of this experience, Firestone weaves lyrical but real prose narratives into the book that ground the poems within the chaotic gestalt of hospitals, medication, and doctors who use strange metaphors to describe their procedures. More than a book of poetry, TEN is a generous blueprint for how to maintain creativity when something like surgery (or the state of the nation) tosses you out of your life and into the swelling, throbbing, regulating reality of present practicing. As Firestone writes, thats what artists do.--Kristin Prevallet