Clay
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Clay
Poetry that finds meaning and connection in the process of creating pottery from clay.
The poems in Clay look to the process of forming clay on a potter's wheel to examine our sense of touch and texture, emptiness, fragility, and the nature of time. Martha Ronk moves through the steps of creating a pot that must be formed, dried, bisque-fired, glazed, and fired again. This practice is paralleled in Ronk's process-oriented language that addresses how we read texture and colour, the ways history and landscapes appear in glazes, Mimbres bowls that covered the faces of the dead, and Giorgio Morandi's still life paintings of ceramic forms.
For Ronk, pottery raises questions about the value of repetition, inevitable failure, and how we may become one with matter. As the potter's hands ache and age, the bowl seems to age as it slumps or breaks. Clay includes observations from other potters and writers as well as small photographs of pots.
Book Details
INFORMATION
ISBN: 9781632431677
Publisher: Omnidawn Publishing
Format: Paperback / softback
Date Published: 28 April 2025
Country: United States
Imprint: Omnidawn Publishing
Audience: General / adult
DIMENSIONS
Spine width: 10.0mm
Width: 152.0mm
Height: 229.0mm
Weight: 172g
Pages: 92
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About the Author
Martha RonkΒ is the author of thirteen books of poetry, a memoir, and a collection of short stories,Β Glass Grapes. Her books includeΒ The Place One Is, A Myth of Ariadne, Silences,Β Ocular Proof,Β Transfer of QualitiesΒ (longlisted for the National Book Award), andΒ in a landscape of having to repeat. Her work has been included in the anthologiesΒ Lyric Postmodernisms,Β American Hybrid,Β Not for Mothers Only, and most recently inΒ North American Women Poets in the 21st Century. She is the emeritus Irma and Jay Price Professor of English at Occidental College in Los Angeles.
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