{"product_id":"peacock-blue-the-collected-poems-9780889229129","title":"Peacock Blue: The Collected Poems","description":"When Phyllis Webb published \u003ci\u003eWilson's Bowl\u003c\/i\u003e in 1980, Northrop Frye hailed it as \"a landmark in Canadian literature\" \u003ci\u003elandmark\u003c\/i\u003e, an event that marks a turning point in something (in this case, Canadian literature); and an instantly recognized feature of a landscape (in this case, the landscape of Canadian poetry). \u003ci\u003eWilson's Bowl\u003c\/i\u003e was Webb's fifth volume of poetry. Three more followed and then she fell silent, turning from literature to abstract painting. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ci\u003ePeacock Blue\u003c\/i\u003e compiles in a single volume all of Webb's published, unpublished, and uncollected works from a writing career that spanned fifty years. It offers readers the opportunity to relish the arc of Webb's entire poetic oeuvre, from the modernist lyricism of her early works, to the groundbreaking volume \u003ci\u003eNaked Poems\u003c\/i\u003e (1965), in which Webb created for herself a new minimalist language; from \u003ci\u003eWilson's Bowl\u003c\/i\u003e to what Douglas Barbour calls \"Webb's loving and subversive engagement with the ghazal\" in \u003ci\u003eWater and Light\u003c\/i\u003e (1984); and finally to the postmodernist prose poems of \u003ci\u003eHanging Fire\u003c\/i\u003e (1990). The concluding section of Peacock Blue contains almost fifty poems previously uncollected, some of which have never been published before. It is full of brilliant but forgotten poems and poetic surprises. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eBrenda Carr has suggested that one of Webb's later essays, \"Message Machine\" (1990), \"initiates a re-reading of her poetics and practice ... Against her anxiety that she is a passive 'message machine' for masculinist culture ... Webb posits another possibility - 'cross-dressing.' She theorizes her mimicry of the male persona as analogous to a 'masquerade' or 'street theatre' and in so doing reconstructs even her earlier poems as a performative space in which agency is possible.\" The truth of Carr's insight becomes increasingly apparent to anyone who undertakes to read through Webb's entire poetic output, gathered together, at last, in \u003ci\u003ePeacock Blue\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eBinding Type:\u003c\/b\u003e Hardcover\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Talonbooks\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 01\/13\/2015\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780889229129\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 512\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 2.30lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 9.10h x 6.30w x 1.70d","brand":"Phyllis Webb","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":36645700731036,"sku":"9780889229129","price":38.25,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0473\/0804\/6492\/products\/img_6cb7f614-4870-485d-9ee4-09bab58ccf83.jpg?v=1603861851","url":"https:\/\/pastforward.org\/products\/peacock-blue-the-collected-poems-9780889229129","provider":"Past Forward","version":"1.0","type":"link"}