Beauty Has a Thousand Faces: Selected Poems

By Grace Andreacchi

Tender, fierce and beautifully crafted, this is a rich selection of poems chosen from the past four decades. Tragical, comical, thoughtful, ironic, they touch on themes such as love both temporal and spiritual, beauty and terror, sorrow and delight.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Mar 20, 2024
• ISBN: 9781447810261

Grace Andreacchi

Grace Andreacchi was born and raised in New York City but has lived on the far side of the great ocean for many years—sometimes in Paris, sometimes Berlin, and nowadays in London. Works include the novels Scarabocchio and Poetry and Fear (Andromache Books), Give my Heart Ease, which received the New American Writing Award, and Music for Glass Orchestra. Stories and poetry appear in both online and print journals. Her work can be viewed at graceandreacchi.com. 

Book preview

by the same author

Fiction

You Are There Behind My Eyelids Forever

Golden Vanities

Poetry and Fear

Scarabocchio

The Prodigy

Music for Glass Orchestra

Give My Heart Ease

Poetry

Worm Bug Feather

Ten Poems for the End of Time

Berlin Elegies

Two Hands Clapping (with artist Alexandra Rozenman)

Little Poems for Children

Elysian Sonnets and Other Poems

For the theatre

Two Brothers

Two Martyr Plays: Lawrence and Agnes

Raphael and Tobias

Beauty Has a Thousand Faces

Selected Poems

Grace Andreacchi

andromache books

Copyright Information

Beauty Has a Thousand Faces: Selected Poems

First published by Andromache Books, London, 2024

andromachebooks.co.uk

Copyright © 2024 by Grace Andreacchi

All rights reserved

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

This is a work of fiction. Any similarity of persons, places or events depicted herein to actual persons, places or events is purely coincidental.

Acknowledgements: Many of these poems first appeared in various literary journals and magazines.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-4478-1026-1

Cover image: Rémi écoutant la mer, Edouard Boubat, 1947

Author, Bernard Boubat

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Remi_%C3%A9coutant_la_mer,_Edouard_Boubat,_Paris,_1995.jpg

This file is licensed under the Creative Commons by SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en

Insect by Takeuchi Seihō, 1901, public domain

Design by The Andromache Fairy

Dedication

for my Yiayia, and for my Jewish grandfather

Contents

by the same author

Copyright Information

Dedication

INTRODUCTION

DAYS OF GRACE

THE THREE WITCHES

MESSSALINA’S MONKEY

TO A NIGHTINGALE

SONNET TO ORPHEUS

IT’S A DUCK’S LIFE

(OR WOULD YOU RATHER BE A) SWAN

EMILY

RED HOUSE UPSIDE DOWN

THE OAK TREE TO CASPAR

RUSALKI

CAT WOMAN

THE WIDOW

ADVICE TO ORPHEUS

EURYDICE

IS THAT CLEAR?

BEAUTY HAS A THOUSAND FACES

THE DAY WE MET

SEHNSUCHT─ A VILLANELLE

NO SECOND COMING

WINTER SONNET

GODFATHER DEATH

A REVELATION: FORBIDDING MOURNING

SEPTEMBER SONNET

A VISIT TO THE PALACE OF WHITE DEATH

IN HAC LACRIMARUM VALLE

MISFORTUNE STRIKES WITHOUT WARNING OR REASON

THE SILENT ONES

SPRING COMES TO THE CITY

THE WEDDING

SONGS FOR A MAD QUEEN

THE MAN OF MY DREAMS

PAVANE

FIRST LOVE

TO CHRIST, THE BRIDEGROOM

ON THE CHANGES TO THE BRUNSWICK CENTRE

ROTHKO – THE LATE SERIES

GAUGUIN’S GIRLS

TONIGHT

IN THE GOLDEN CHAMBER OF SAINT URSULA

HEART POEMS

WINTER JOURNEY

BAHNHOF BRIESEN

SONNET CONTRAFACTUAL

BETRAYAL

BUTCHER BOY

CAGE FIGHTING

AIRPORT POEM

HEILIGABEND

A CHRISTMAS LITANY

ELEGY FOR A PAIR OF WHITE GLOVES

SONNET FOR ISABELLA

FELIX CULPA

ON THE BEACH

THE BIRDCAGE

CASSANDRA

WINTER COMES TO RHANDIRMYN

PITTA ELEGANS

FOUND ON THE BEACH

P.I.

ROSARY

THE CRANE WIFE

KINTSUKUROI

MERCY

ASCENSION

LOOKING AT AN OLD MAP OF BERLIN

NIGHT OF THE SUMMER SOLSTICE

ALIA, THE BEAUTIFUL

UP ON THE MOOR

THE GARDEN

FIRST COMMUNION

MARY’S FLIGHT

THE WAR IS OVER

ASSUMPTION

TEN POEMS FOR THE END OF TIME

APOLLO

OVER THE SPEED LIMIT

PEACE

THE FIND

VIRAL

THE GOOD HOUSE

FOR MY BROTHER TONY WHO IS STILL HERE

READING THE DEAD

AFTER THE SNOW

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

INTRODUCTION

I’ve been writing poetry nearly all my life. I’m writing it still. Chosen from the past four decades, the poems in this little book are those I like the best. If they do not all speak the precise language of my current self, nonetheless all seem to me to speak well. I’ve kept the order more or less chronological. I’ve no great theory of poetry to offer; such things bore me in others and no doubt would bore me in myself. I’ll let the poems speak for themselves. May you find something here that you will be glad to have read.

Grace Andreacchi

London, January 2024

DAYS OF GRACE

The days of grace are coming

The days of sorrow cannot last

Already on