The Watchers

By Memye Curtis Tucker

Book Overview

In the world of Memye Curtis Tucker's poetry, the observed are on display, on trial, on guard, or disappearing, and often changed by the eyes upon them; the gazers are benevolent, threatening, judgmental, separate, invisible.

There is in the poems a surface accessibility; mysteries in this book are not puzzles or ellipses, but moving revelations of paradox and unending possibilities. And while many are meditative there is always the tug of the narrative impulse.

Northrop Frye has remarked upon the centrality of the epigram in Tucker's writing. But beyond the epigrammatic quality and the elegiac stance of much of her work, whether her subject matter is a turkey caller or a town covered over by an airport runway, is the hope of holding on, even if provisionally, to what disappears by watching as it is transformed through memory and art into "a fugue, a twisting leap, pigment the color of flame."

Louis Simpson, this year's judge of the Hollis Summers Poetry Prize, said of Tucker's work, "the writing is elegant in the sense engineers use, the forms and style being fitted to their purpose. I was not able to predict what this highly intelligent writer would turn to next, and found that whatever it was would be a pleasure to read."

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0821412531
• ISBN13: 9780821412534
• Release Date: November 1998
• Publisher: Ohio University Press
• Length: 88 Pages
• Weight: 0.28 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 5.5" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Leif's review

I think that this book was one of the best that I have ever read.It deals with real life issues like peer pressure and family problems such as divorce and deaths. It also deals with emotional issues like depression,guilt,and sorrow.The people are also realistic,none of them are like the nice little perfect people tht you see in things like fairy tales.Over all if you are looking for a realistic and cleverly written book this is the one you should be looking for.

This book was awsome.......

I thought this book was really good.I read the whole thing,and I don't like reading that much.If I had to sit down every nite and read this book again i would.I would recomend the watcher for every person that wants to read a good tale.

The Watchers offer surprises

Tucker's poems offer surprises of perspective, from the view point of the observer, and from who or what is observed. The interactions of sometimes several sets of observers, as in "Holding Patterns," reverberate from the last line of the poem, "but there are other burials," to the beginning. In "Ghosts," silent grandmothers reflect from the polished surfaces of spoons.This collection explores histories, places and family ties through apt, many layered use of detail. The image itself can be haunting: "From what overflow of desire--/this tired woman/ nightly turning emptiness into white azaleas-" At other times the speaker draws us into an insight, "After you learn the words, the play changes," and leaves us looking, searching, for more. A great book!

The Watchers--Highly Recommended!

Tucker's poems prove themselves rewarding for the reader who is willing to look closely at the world. Her poems seem to beckon the unwavering stare. One of her speakers admits, "Now I'm the last one in the museum. No one sees / a woman searching wall after wall as if for lost children." One sometimes feels that same sense of urgency reading this collection, looking into the truths and untruths of the world, some simple, some fragmented, some hopeful, others harsh and cruel. This collection explores the ways of seeing and the ways of being seen. Ghosts of grandmothers stare down; Miss Dalton dances for us all, and the skull of a Saber-Toothed Tiger is on display. Tucker's awareness of place, history, and familiy ties, as well as her lyrical sensibilities and fine use of detail, work together to keep the reader returning for more. In her poem about Rabun Gap, Tucker writes, "Mist / clings to our hands, softly brushes our bodies / in the places air had touched / without our notice." Tucker's poems are like the mist she describes. They brush against us. They softly call us to take notice. An excellent book!