ABOUT THIS BOOK

Winner of the Felix Pollak Prize in Poetry, selected by Robert Wrigley

Season of the Second Thought begins in a deep blue mood, longing to find words for what feels beyond saying. Lynn Powell's poems journey through the seasons, quarreling with the muse, reckoning with loss, questioning the heart and its "pedigree of Pentecost," and seeking out paintings in order to see inside the self. With their crisp observations and iridescent language, these poems accumulate the bounty of an examined life. These lines emerge from darkness into a shimmering equilibrium—witty, lush, and hard-won.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Lynn Powell teaches in the Creative Writing Program at Oberlin College, where she directs Oberlin's Writers-in-the-Schools Program. She has published two previous collections of poetry: Old & New Testaments, winner of the Brittingham Prize in Poetry, and The Zones of Paradise. Her nonfiction book Framing Innocence won the Studs & Ida Terkel Award.

REVIEWS

"Let Powell's images and figures wash over you. They can be deft and unobtrusive, but they will stick with you; they will illuminate what otherwise might be dark. A poet so sure-handed is irresistible. Dazzling." —Robert Wrigley

"Not just written, but wrought. Powell's new poems deftly combine keen observation with perfect pitch, and their rich chiaroscuro renders them vibrant and painterly as the Dutch masters they often reference. The current running through her lines leaves me shivering with excitement and gratitude." —R. T. Smith, author of In the Night Orchard

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

1.
Kind of Blue
Alberta Clipper
Feedback for the Muse
No Proust, No Stevens, No Nietzsche
Woman in Blue Reading a Letter
Love Poem from the Wrong Side of the Rain
Fragments of a Lost Gospel
Gale Force Hymn
Slow Elegy from Afar
July’s Proverb
Indian Summer

2.
October Edge
Species of Idolatry
On the Silver Anniversary of a Heartbreak
Master Class
In the Thin-Lipped, Purifying Weather
Postcard to the Muse
In Another Aftermath
A Scherzo for Sadness
The Argument for Zero
Voice Overs

3.
Tantrum, with Mistletoe
Duet for Ecclesiastes and Dutch Weather
Vernal Knowledge
“The Centuries Have a Way of Being Male—”
Assorted Angels
Needing the Baroque
The Moon Rising
Aubade for the Muse
Summer Songs in the Key of X
Driftings at Anchor
At the Equinox

Notes

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