{"product_id":"stunt-heart-paperback","title":"Stunt Heart - Paperback","description":"\u003cdiv\u003e\u003cp style=\"text-align: right;\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/reportcopyrightinfringement.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"\u003e\u003cb\u003eReport copyright infringement\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cp\u003eby \u003cb\u003eMary Jo Thompson\u003c\/b\u003e (Author)\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn \u003ci\u003eStunt Heart\u003c\/i\u003e, Mary Jo Thompson's debut collection, a female gaze locates the ironies inside the subjects of marriage and death, loneliness and love, speaking and silence. The title plays on both sick hearts and circus tricks, and appropriately, these poems are direct, personal, and disarmingly emotive. Look at the end of the first poem, \"Says Penelope,\" where the speaker suddenly veers to \"Newsflash: I sleep- \/ walk.\" These stark moments of admission are used to perfection in the centerpiece sonnet series, \"Thirteen Months,\" the collection's highlight. Distilled emotion over the illness and death of an estranged husband ranges in tone from the dark humor that compares the marriage to a used car to the elegiac imagery of protecting the family garden from frost. The shock of seeing the deceased in his casket looking like a cross between Clark Gable and Dracula seasons the collection, recurring in ruminations on the various ways a body is prepared at death and the story of a mother who dies while sneezing. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Although no one brings back the dead by writing poetry, in \u003ci\u003eStunt Heart\u003c\/i\u003e, Thompson revisits them with credible humor and tough dispatches from bedrooms, graveyards, and hospital hallways. Thompson's \u003ci\u003eStunt Heart\u003c\/i\u003e jukes, dodges, and prays while muscling through all manners of demise and in the process reveals how one can turn grief into speech, art into grieving. \u003cbr\u003e\u003ch3\u003eAuthor Biography\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eMary Jo Thompson\u003c\/b\u003e's work has been anthologized in Best American Poetry 2011 and \u003ci\u003eAnother and Another: An Anthology from the Grind Daily Writing Series\u003c\/i\u003e. Her poetry has appeared in numerous literary journals including, \u003ci\u003eField\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eBeloit Poetry Journal\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eRHINO\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eIndiana Review\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eCarolina Quarterly\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eGreat River Review\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eSows Ear Poetry Review\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eMinnesota Monthly\u003c\/i\u003e, among others. She holds an MFA in creative writing from the Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. \u003ci\u003eStunt Heart\u003c\/i\u003e is the winner of the 2016 Backwaters Prize.\u003c\/p\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eNumber of Pages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 90\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eDimensions:\u003c\/strong\u003e 0.22 x 9 x 6 IN\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublication Date:\u003c\/strong\u003e August 20, 2017\u003c\/div\u003e\n            ","brand":"Books by splitShops","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50372027056365,"sku":"9781935218463","price":17.28,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0020\/8918\/9441\/files\/EWchlYPFzI9781935218463.webp?v=1785490886","url":"https:\/\/www.webster.direct\/products\/stunt-heart-paperback","provider":"Webster.Direct","version":"1.0","type":"link"}