Magnetic North

By Linda Gregerson

This stunning collection from the award-winning poet Linda Gregerson examines the intersections of history, science, and art.
Touching on subjects as diverse as a breakthrough discovery in cell biology and the films of Ingmar Bergman, the anatomy of a possum and the Nazi occupation of Poland, Gregerson seeks to distill “the shape of the question,” the tenuous connection between knowing and suffering, between the brightness of the body and the shadows of the mind. “Choose any angle you like,” she writes, “the world is split in two.” Longtime readers of Gregerson’s poetry will be fascinated by her departure from the supple tercets in which she has worked for nearly twenty years: Magnetic North is a bold anthology of formal experiments. It is also a heartening act of sustained attention from one of our most mindful American poets.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: Nov 6, 2008
• ISBN: 9780547754307

Linda Gregerson

Linda Gregerson is the author of six previous collections of poetry, most recently of Prodigal: New and Selected Poems. A former Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, Gregerson is the Caroline Walker Bynum Distinguished University Professor at the University of Michigan, where she directs the Helen Zell Writers’ Program.