The Ice Lizard: Poems 1977-88

By Judith Emlyn Johnson

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1878818171
• ISBN13: 9781878818171
• Release Date: January 1992
• Publisher: Sheep Meadow Pr
• Length: 95 Pages
• Weight: 0.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.5" x 6.0"

Customer Reviews

GRRRRRROWLLLL!

Judith Johnson is the cure for the cool, controlled academic free verse and the disjointed and difficult "language" poetry that's currently dominating the scene. It's music, but it isn't, it's almost written in a foreign language, but it isn't. The "Ice Lizard" and flip-side of "Vita Nova"--it in its skin is a re-telling of the Divine Comedy, though this time, disturbingly, the guide of the poet is a large (and somewhat angry) dinosaur she finds in the basment of her townhouse. If it sounds ridiculous you are on the right track--Johnson mixes the ridiculous with the sublime, the poetic with the scientific, the bristling, explosive language with tensile and traditional forms like the sonnet, the villanelle and the rondeau. The 'Ice Lizard' isn't reeeeally book, it's closer to an opera libretto, a performance score. My suggestion: borrow a pair of bongos, get naked, paint wild primitive symbols all over your body, and dance in ecstasy while shouting the poems into the universe.