The Blessing of Dark Water

By Elizabeth Lyons

"These poems are infused with contradiction: discovery and pain, blood and healing. Ultimately, The Blessing of Dark Water is wrenching in its investigation of the artistic urge as tempered by the transformative power of suffering."—Amy Quan Barry

Lyons's debut, The Blessing of Dark Water, highlights the exquisite pain and terrible happiness of mental illness by invoking the voice and perspective of American artist, Walter Inglis Anderson, who struggled with bipolar depression and psychotic episodes. These poems grapple with the suffering and secrecy of "invisible" illness, and the aching struggle for a simple human connection within the complexities.

"How All Things are Managed"

They call it a falling into death.

Two dogs are shot into my vein.
Three-second breath then
the shake and jerk.
One dog starves and the other
feeds on its body.

Remember: thou art dust.

If I am lucky, there is only the darkness,
an explosion.

Perhaps a fracture,
a concussion,
a dislocation.
Flecks of blood.

If the illness in your brain is brutal,
be brutal back.

Elizabeth Lyons holds an MFA from Purdue University and is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Houston. Her poems have appeared in Tin House, Indiana Review, New South, and Salt Hill. A recipient of fellowships and prizes from the Bread Loaf Writer's Conference, Vermont Studio Center, the I-Park Foundation, and the Academy of American Poets, she lives in Houston, TX.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Alice James Books
• Release date: Apr 11, 2017
• ISBN: 9781938584435

Elizabeth Lyons

These days, Elizabeth is many things: mom of 5 (including a set of twins), friend, lunch maker, chauffeur, hostage negotiator, author, on-call plumber, tile layer, guitar student, window washer, product designer, and on and on. She is the author of Holy Sh*t...I'm Having Twins! The Definitive Guide to Remaining Calm When You're Twice as Freaked Out and Ready or Not...There We Go: The REAL Experts' Guide to the Toddler Years with Twins---humorous, solutions-packed, tell-it-like-it-is guides to the first year and toddler years with twins. She is also the author of You Cannot Be Serious: and 32 Other Rules that Sustain a (Mostly) Balanced Mom. She demands the right to do things her way--a way that often defies even the most creative imaginations--and she strives to inspire others to do things their way (once they figure out what their way is!). Elizabeth lives in Arizona with her five kids, two dogs, two fish, four barely surviving organic gardens, and whatever (or whomever) else has taken up residence with them in the last five minutes. Please feel free to contact Elizabeth at author (at) elizabethlyons (dot) com. She would love to hear from you, and she prides herself on punctual responses. But if you send an e-mail between 9 p.m. and 7 a.m., you'll have to wait a bit because those are the hours during which she either thinks about or actually engages in sleep, the latter of which is completely non-negotiable.  Her websites are: www.ElizabethLyons.com www.FirstYearWithTwins.com www.PublishAProfitableBook.com

Book preview

[image: cover]

© 2017 by Elizabeth Lyons

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States

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Alice James Books are published by Alice James Poetry Cooperative, Inc., an affiliate of the University of Maine at Farmington.

Alice James Books

114 Prescott Street

Farmington, ME 04938

www.alicejamesbooks.org

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Lyons, Elizabeth, 1981- author.

Title: The blessing of dark water / Elizabeth Lyons.

Description: Farmington, ME: Alice James Books, 2017.

Identifiers: LCCN 2016046097 (print) | LCCN 2017002384 (ebook) | ISBN 9781938584336 (paperback) | ISBN 9781938584435 (eBook)

Subjects: | BISAC: POETRY / American / General.

Classification: LCC PS3612.Y5746 A6 2017 (print) | LCC PS3612.Y5746 (ebook) | DDC 811/.6--dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016046097

Alice James Books gratefully acknowledges support from individual donors, private foundations, the University of Maine at Farmington, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Amazon Literary Partnership.

COVER PHOTOGRAPH:

LISTENING TO THE MIND BY JAYOUNG YOON

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