Undone, Poems by Kim Bridgford

Undone is the long-awaited first collection of poems by Kim Bridgford. Combining formal mastery with an ear for the nuances of intimate human speech, Bridgford's work is breathtaking in its emotional richness, linguistic dexterity, and wit.

Review of Undone

Samples of Kim Bridgford's poetry

Kim Bridgford was born in l959 and grew up in Coal Valley, Illinois. She received a B.A. in English and an M.F.A. in creative writing from the University of Iowa, and a Ph.D. in English from the University of Illinois. Her poetry has appeared in North American Review, The Christian Science Monitor, and The Iowa Review, her fiction in The Georgia Review, The Massachusetts Review, and Redbook. She lives with her husband, Pete Duval, and their son, Nick, in Connecticut, where she is a professor of English at Fairfield University and poetry editor of Dogwood. In l994 she was named Connecticut Professor of the Year by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, and she was the recipient of a l999 NEA Fellowship. Her letterpress book of poems, Eden's Gift, is forthcoming from Aralia Press.

Praise for Undone

"Out of what she calls 'the bric-a-brac / Of ordinary life,' Kim Bridgford has made poems remarkable for their depth of feeling and formal skill. Her lapidary precision conveys a passionate artistry. Open this book anywhere, and you will find a gem."--Mark Jarman

"I read Kim Bridgford's new collection, Undone, with deep satisfaction in the way she manages to write poems in formal terms that nevertheless exhibit a lovely openness, that breathe with a life full of deep feeling and intense intellectual activity. Her work is rigorous and memorable, full of linguistic surprises and emotional twists that suggest, as she says, that there is an art 'in learning how to underscore.' Her mastery of the conventions of poetry is matched by the freshness of her vision."--Jay Parini

"Kim Bridgford's themes are large--mortal illness, extravagant love, religious longing--but they are given to us in settings that are daily and familiar, whose poignancy comes from their particularity and ordinariness. Valery said that in a poem it takes as much energy to write 'garden' as to write 'universe': in the cadences of her loveliest poems Kim Bridgford is able to write both 'garden' and 'universe' at once, and, what is far harder, to convince us of the truth of both at once."--Dick Davis

$16.00, 120 pages, ISBN: 0971737142

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