The Royal Baker's Daughter: Royal Baker's Daughter
by Barbara Goldberg
University of Wisconsin Press, 2008 Paper: 978-0-299-22724-1 | eISBN: 978-0-299-22723-4 | Cloth: 978-0-299-22720-3 Library of Congress Classification PS3557.O3555R69 2008 Dewey Decimal Classification 811.54
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC | EXCERPT | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
ABOUT THIS BOOK
Winner of the 2008 Felix Pollak Prize in Poetry, selected by David St. John
These poems, at once elegant and earthy, reveal the inner workings of the human psyche and show us that sometimes the best defense against terror is making mischief. The Royal Baker’s Daughter was raised on a diet of stone soup and the occasional leftover royal treat. This leaves her with an appetite for authenticity. With nothing but her two deft hands to guide her, she embarks on a journey into the dark forest, “where sticks and stones and absolutes reign and nothing, even sin, is original.”
Best Fall book from the Montserrat Review
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Barbara Goldberg is the author of Berta Broadfoot and Pepin the Short: A Merovingian Romance; Cautionary Tales (winner of the Camden Poetry Award); and Marvelous Pursuits (winner of the Violet Reed Haas Award). Her poems have appeared in Poetry, The Paris Review, and The Gettysburg Review. She is the coeditor of two anthologies of contemporary Israeli poetry, including After the First Rain: Israeli Poems on War and Peace. Goldberg is senior speechwriter at AARP and teaches speechwriting, poetry, and translation at Georgetown University and at the Writer’s Center in Bethesda, Maryland.
REVIEWS
“In Barbara Goldberg’s marvelous collection, The Royal Baker’s Daughter, cooking itself stands as a metaphor for devotion to the fruits of the earth and to the creation of human hopes. Never didactic and always scrupulous, these poems stand as a kind of testimony to the transformative alchemy of both cuisine and the natural world. Barbara Goldberg understands that, at times, only a sense of fable allows us to fully understand our own shifting, incomprehensible lives. Within and against the constellation of the family, with special resonance given to the presiding presence of the father, these poems show us how we sometimes choose to devour—over and over again, often relishing their texture—those very wounds that have made us who we are and what we have come to believe.”—David St. John, Felix Pollak Prize judge
“The Royal Baker’s Daughter is a remarkable book of poems. It explores, in familial, historical, and global contexts, the idea of boundaries and conflict, connection and redemption. These poems in a way remind us that all human relationships are negotiations—and that the integrity with which we navigate through them is often the only thing anchoring us to a comprehensible place.” —Laura Orem, The Montserrat Review
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Contents
Acknowledgments 000
<LINE SPACE>
Amulet 000
<LINE SPACE>
I. Kindness
Aluminum 000
Milk 000
Carvel 000
My Father's Mistress 000
1. She of No Name 000
2. Herta 000
3. Lily 000
Star 000
Kindness 000
Keeping Watch 000
Pretty Stories, Funny Pictures 000
Our Lady 000
Nude Study 000
Wiedergutmachung 000
Keeping Up 000
Dust 000
Homework 000
II. Cedar tree. Starfish. Beautiful eyes.
The Day Before 000
Flight 000
From the Book of Judges 000
Fault 000
Codes 000
Burnt Offering 000
Sarah Reflects 000
Milcah 000
My Mother's Hair 000
Destroyer in Paradise 000
Point of Origin 000
Dybbuk 000
Naming a City 000
The Blonde Goddess of Saravan 000
Critter 000
Produits de Terroir 000
Conservator 000
Headquarters 000
III. Fortune's Darling
The Kingdom of Speculation 000
Small Wonder 000
Fortune's Darling 000
Spitting Image 000
Her Four Crinolines 000
Souvenir 000
What She Eats 000
Cameo of Fortune 000
Winning the Pot 000
Those Nights 000
Wee One 000
The Way She Likes It 000
Slough of the Seven Toads 000
Elementals 000
Fairy Tale 000
The Early Childhood of Grief 000
After Babel 000
Flock 000
Riddle 000
Cinema Verité 000
No Small Feat 000
Weight 000
Far Flung 000
Once, the Buffalo 000
The Fullness Thereof 000
<LINE SPACE>
Gourmand's Prayer 000
<LINE SPACE>
Biographical Note 000
EXCERPT “Fated to be fickle in food as in love. Not
one flavor that she craves but a lick of this,
of that. Sauerkraut and caraway, pickled
beets, mutton, and leeks. This does not even
touch upon the subject of sweets, for her
nonnegotiable, as for others, faith. She takes
her lumps of sugar straight. Or with crushed
poppy seed to make a paste. Dusted over
dumplings, powdered over cake. Never having
swilled mother’s milk, nutmeg in her coffee, black.”
—excerpt from “Fortune’s Darling”
copyright The Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System. All rights reserved.
REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
If you are a student who cannot use this book in printed form, BiblioVault may be able to supply you
with an electronic file for alternative access.
Please have the accessibility coordinator at your school fill out this form.
The Royal Baker's Daughter: Royal Baker's Daughter
by Barbara Goldberg
University of Wisconsin Press, 2008 Paper: 978-0-299-22724-1 eISBN: 978-0-299-22723-4 Cloth: 978-0-299-22720-3
Winner of the 2008 Felix Pollak Prize in Poetry, selected by David St. John
These poems, at once elegant and earthy, reveal the inner workings of the human psyche and show us that sometimes the best defense against terror is making mischief. The Royal Baker’s Daughter was raised on a diet of stone soup and the occasional leftover royal treat. This leaves her with an appetite for authenticity. With nothing but her two deft hands to guide her, she embarks on a journey into the dark forest, “where sticks and stones and absolutes reign and nothing, even sin, is original.”
Best Fall book from the Montserrat Review
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Barbara Goldberg is the author of Berta Broadfoot and Pepin the Short: A Merovingian Romance; Cautionary Tales (winner of the Camden Poetry Award); and Marvelous Pursuits (winner of the Violet Reed Haas Award). Her poems have appeared in Poetry, The Paris Review, and The Gettysburg Review. She is the coeditor of two anthologies of contemporary Israeli poetry, including After the First Rain: Israeli Poems on War and Peace. Goldberg is senior speechwriter at AARP and teaches speechwriting, poetry, and translation at Georgetown University and at the Writer’s Center in Bethesda, Maryland.
REVIEWS
“In Barbara Goldberg’s marvelous collection, The Royal Baker’s Daughter, cooking itself stands as a metaphor for devotion to the fruits of the earth and to the creation of human hopes. Never didactic and always scrupulous, these poems stand as a kind of testimony to the transformative alchemy of both cuisine and the natural world. Barbara Goldberg understands that, at times, only a sense of fable allows us to fully understand our own shifting, incomprehensible lives. Within and against the constellation of the family, with special resonance given to the presiding presence of the father, these poems show us how we sometimes choose to devour—over and over again, often relishing their texture—those very wounds that have made us who we are and what we have come to believe.”—David St. John, Felix Pollak Prize judge
“The Royal Baker’s Daughter is a remarkable book of poems. It explores, in familial, historical, and global contexts, the idea of boundaries and conflict, connection and redemption. These poems in a way remind us that all human relationships are negotiations—and that the integrity with which we navigate through them is often the only thing anchoring us to a comprehensible place.” —Laura Orem, The Montserrat Review
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Contents
Acknowledgments 000
<LINE SPACE>
Amulet 000
<LINE SPACE>
I. Kindness
Aluminum 000
Milk 000
Carvel 000
My Father's Mistress 000
1. She of No Name 000
2. Herta 000
3. Lily 000
Star 000
Kindness 000
Keeping Watch 000
Pretty Stories, Funny Pictures 000
Our Lady 000
Nude Study 000
Wiedergutmachung 000
Keeping Up 000
Dust 000
Homework 000
II. Cedar tree. Starfish. Beautiful eyes.
The Day Before 000
Flight 000
From the Book of Judges 000
Fault 000
Codes 000
Burnt Offering 000
Sarah Reflects 000
Milcah 000
My Mother's Hair 000
Destroyer in Paradise 000
Point of Origin 000
Dybbuk 000
Naming a City 000
The Blonde Goddess of Saravan 000
Critter 000
Produits de Terroir 000
Conservator 000
Headquarters 000
III. Fortune's Darling
The Kingdom of Speculation 000
Small Wonder 000
Fortune's Darling 000
Spitting Image 000
Her Four Crinolines 000
Souvenir 000
What She Eats 000
Cameo of Fortune 000
Winning the Pot 000
Those Nights 000
Wee One 000
The Way She Likes It 000
Slough of the Seven Toads 000
Elementals 000
Fairy Tale 000
The Early Childhood of Grief 000
After Babel 000
Flock 000
Riddle 000
Cinema Verité 000
No Small Feat 000
Weight 000
Far Flung 000
Once, the Buffalo 000
The Fullness Thereof 000
<LINE SPACE>
Gourmand's Prayer 000
<LINE SPACE>
Biographical Note 000
EXCERPT “Fated to be fickle in food as in love. Not
one flavor that she craves but a lick of this,
of that. Sauerkraut and caraway, pickled
beets, mutton, and leeks. This does not even
touch upon the subject of sweets, for her
nonnegotiable, as for others, faith. She takes
her lumps of sugar straight. Or with crushed
poppy seed to make a paste. Dusted over
dumplings, powdered over cake. Never having
swilled mother’s milk, nutmeg in her coffee, black.”
—excerpt from “Fortune’s Darling”
copyright The Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System. All rights reserved.
REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
If you are a student who cannot use this book in printed form, BiblioVault may be able to supply you
with an electronic file for alternative access.
Please have the accessibility coordinator at your school fill out this form.
It can take 2-3 weeks for requests to be filled.
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC | EXCERPT | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE