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Door

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Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2023 by LitHub

A new collection of vivid, personal and provocative work from the author of Or to Begin Again, a finalist for the 2009 National Book Award in poetry


In Ann Lauterbach’s eleventh collection, the image of a Door recurs across several poems, as she considers the perpetual dialogue between what is open and what is shut for each of us. The Door is a threshold between the inner landscape of memory, thought, imagination and dream and the outer so-called real world, which increasingly comes to us through technology’s lens, displacing and distorting our sense of intimacy, presence and relation. What is near, and what is far away? She asks about the efficacy of language itself, when confronted by the urgent uncertainties of contemporary experience.
© Marina van Zuylen
Ann Lauterbach is the author of ten books of poetry and three books of essays, including The Night Sky: Writings on the Poetics of Experience and The Given & The Chosen; her 2009 collection, Or To Begin Again, was a finalist for the National Book Award. Lauterbach’s work has been recognized by fellowships from, among others, the Guggenheim Foundation and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. She is the Ruth and David Schwab II Professor of Languages and Literatures at Bard College. A native of New York City, she lives in Germantown, New York. View titles by Ann Lauterbach

About

Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2023 by LitHub

A new collection of vivid, personal and provocative work from the author of Or to Begin Again, a finalist for the 2009 National Book Award in poetry


In Ann Lauterbach’s eleventh collection, the image of a Door recurs across several poems, as she considers the perpetual dialogue between what is open and what is shut for each of us. The Door is a threshold between the inner landscape of memory, thought, imagination and dream and the outer so-called real world, which increasingly comes to us through technology’s lens, displacing and distorting our sense of intimacy, presence and relation. What is near, and what is far away? She asks about the efficacy of language itself, when confronted by the urgent uncertainties of contemporary experience.

Author

© Marina van Zuylen
Ann Lauterbach is the author of ten books of poetry and three books of essays, including The Night Sky: Writings on the Poetics of Experience and The Given & The Chosen; her 2009 collection, Or To Begin Again, was a finalist for the National Book Award. Lauterbach’s work has been recognized by fellowships from, among others, the Guggenheim Foundation and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. She is the Ruth and David Schwab II Professor of Languages and Literatures at Bard College. A native of New York City, she lives in Germantown, New York. View titles by Ann Lauterbach

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