{"product_id":"9781574415544","title":"In the Permanent Collection","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eWinner of the Vassar Miller Prize in Poetry, 2013.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eTrying to make sense of a disordered world, Stefanie Wortman’s debut collection examines works of art as varied as casts of antique sculpture, 19th-century novels, and even scenes from reality television to investigate the versions of order that they offer. These deft poems yield moments of surprising levity even as they mount a sharp critique of human folly.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“These poems seem haunted by a mostly nameless melancholia. In \u003ci\u003eThe Permanent Collection\u003c\/i\u003e, however, turns its grim geography of prisons, mortuaries, and tawdry suburbs into something close to classical elegy. ‘In sunken rooms,’ Wortman writes, ‘on scratchy rugs, maybe we’ve never known happiness.’ It’s that ‘maybe’—the smart hedge—that renders her poems complex, often beguiling, but never without a gesture of redemption. This should be part of any serious poet’s permanent collection.”—Chad Davidson, author, \u003ci\u003eThe Last Predicta\u003c\/i\u003e and judge\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFrom “Long Occupation”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eI was naïve of foreign affairs in the Four\u003cbr\u003e Seasons bar when a Swiss knife maker\u003cbr\u003e assured me of the coming war. . .\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"University of North Texas Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47049140994288,"sku":"9781574415544","price":12.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9781574415544_p0.jpg?v=1763792712","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9781574415544","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}