Displacements
By Jean
Rubin
CLICK HERE TO READ ABOUT A
RECENT POETRY READING BY JEAN RUBIN
AT THE MARYLAND INSTITUTE COLLEGE OF ART IN BALTIMORE
AND TO SEE A PHOTO ALBUM OF THE EVENT AND RECEPTION
AFTERWARDS
The
collected poems of 20th century woman writer Jean
Rubin.
Loss,
transfiguration and a sense of the absurd inform
Displacements. Jean Rubin’s passionately intelligent poetry
juxtaposes an ineffable, metaphysical scale against the
small, often poignant details of an everyday world, and
examines the paradox implicit in their co-existence with
wonder, delight, and a wistful acknowledgment that it is
beyond comprehension. An acute observer of city life, the
behavior of children, and the steps involved in glazing a
ham, Rubin extrapolates cosmic dimensions from triviality
and juggles the large and the small with brio. Her voice
can adapt from lyrical, to ruminative, to elegiac—but it
remains always and brilliantly her own.
Edith
Milton -- author of Tiger
in the Attic
I would
make a good juggler
If my hands did not grow cold
At the very thought. All I need
Is fluid fingers, a dead eye
And a head for geometry... --
From the
poem Blindman’s Bluff
Jean Rubin was born in New York City in 1928. She received
a B.A. from Smith College in 1948 and an M.A. from Columbia
University in 1957, both degrees in English. Also in 1957,
a manuscript of her poems was a finalist in the Yale
Younger Poets competition.
In 1963 her poem, “Theme and Variations,” was co-winner of
a Robert Frost Award from the Poetry Society of America.
In 1976, she created for the composer, Robert Hall Lewis, a
text that he used to structure his “Combinazioni III for
Oboe/English Horn, Percussion, and Narrator.” This was
subsequently performed in Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital
Hall in New York City, and also at Goucher College and
Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore.
She held various jobs in New York and San Francisco until
she came to Baltimore in 1962 to join the faculty of the
Maryland Institute, College of Art, where she taught
writing and Literature until she retired in 1990. She still
lives in Baltimore.
At about the age of nine, she came across a photograph of
the Taj Mahal. She had already spent a summer in Belgium,
and now knew that she would have to go to India. In 1965,
she did so, on her way from England to Japan-she had made
earlier voyages to several European countries and would do
so again, afterward.
The Hedge
On
the other side of the hedge
They speak of a
game lost
By a technical error. Red hair
In sunlight, copper, bare skin, bronze.
They laugh. Birds chirp.
Ice clinks in someone’s glass.
On this side of the hedge
An empty chair rocks in the wind.
On the other side of the hedge,
This morning, three children:
You must be superman, says one;
I want to be a shark, says two;
You must be the daddy, says three.
They giggle and agree to play house.
Tonight, moonlight dapples a crowd;
A guitar, laughter, songs. At dawn,
A few still linger and talk.
On
this side of the hedge
Shadows suggest
the grotesque
And yet, I would not choose
To go round to the other side—
I might lose a double advantage.
Displacements
Jean Rubin
Copyright 2008
Published by Wildfire Poetry Press, an imprint of Boudica
Publishing, Inc.
138 pages
In
the Baltimore area
"Displacements" by Jean Rubin is available at:
The Ivy Bookstore
6080 Falls Road
Baltimore, MD
410-377-2966
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"Displacements" from the publisher:
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