![[logo] Crest of the University of Wisconsin-Madison](/images/crest.png)
![[logo] Ask a Librarian](/images/ask.png)
« Back to All News Releases
Parallel Press releases How Dumb the Stars by Francine Conley
Posted 4/2/2001
MADISON, Wis.--
Francine Conley, who earned her Ph.D. in French literature
and theater at the UW-Madison, is the author of the 12th chapbook
from the Parallel Press, How Dumb the Stars.
Conley's poems are gifts of substance and truth wrapped in tantalizing metaphors. She is thoroughly at home in the quirky mysteries of experience where there are many meanings, often best spoken in parables. Rich moments of connection and understanding are not so much captured as revealed.
A chapbook is a small-format literary work, usually of poetry or essays. The chapbooks are published by the Parallel Press, an imprint of the UW-Madison libraries.
Conley has adapted and performed her poetry into four one-woman shows, Cocu Couple (1992), Whole People (1995), Truth or Dare! (1998), and The Purse Project (2000). She has also been the recipient of a variety of awards, including the George B. Hill and Therese Muller Creative Writing Award (1996), and a Fulbright grant to write and do theater work in France (1998-99).
How Dumb
the Stars offers rich moments of connection and understanding,
but these are not so much captured as revealed. Below is Tongue,
the 6th poem in the collection.
Tongue
Old ruins, great silence,
night
that has brought black
and blue. How dumb the stars.
Me, in the footprint, you
on the edge of a cobweb
slowly chewing the heavy barge.
Trembling, the water at night
curses the sleepless, blesses
the small, black of us, running
here, along window panes, speaking
with a leaning tongue the back
of a ghostly and lazy language.
Each Parallel Press chapbook is $10; annual subscriptions for six are $50. Titles may be ordered by writing:
The Parallel Press
372 Memorial Library
728 State St.
Madison, WI 53706
For information, see the Parallel Press Web site at http://parallelpress.library.wisc.edu, or phone (608) 262-2600. Email inquiries may be sent to kfrazier@library.wisc.edu.
