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Author Thompson, Jeanie, author.

Title The myth of water : poems from the life of Helen Keller / Jeanie Thompson
Published Tuscaloosa : University of Alabama Press, [2016]
©2016

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Description 1 online resource (xxv, 72 pages)
Contents Writing about Helen Keller; Important Texts; Chronology of Helen Keller's Life; Prologue; Practicing Speech; I. You Are Helen: 1880-1917; Memory of Ivy Green; First Dream of the Tennessee; At Wrentham; This Day; Silence; Teacher's Letter from Puerto Rico; Soliloquy: Palm Sunday 1917; Imaginary Letter to John Hitz; Encounter in Montgomery; The Little Boy Next Door; II. Bridge: Helen Keller's Journal, 1936-1937; First Entry, after Midnight; The Not-You; Another Country; Dream of the Manse Children Talking; The Exquisite Instrument that Makes an Ear
Fragment of an Afternoon at Musee Rodin, Paris, with Gutzon BorglumEnrico Caruso Remembers Helen Keller; Returnings; Imaginary Farewell from Russell Cone to Helen Keller; River, Bridge, and Sky; I Promised; III. Your Light: 1943-1948; From a Japanese Child along the Parade Route; Reproach; Late Elegy for FDR; First Light at the Shinto Shrine for A.S.M.; IV. Coming through Fire: Circa 1955; Hunger; Teacher; One Word; Our Hands; V. Tell the World: 1950-Present Day; Jo Davidson's Letter from Florence, Italy; Helen's Meditation in the Marble Quarry, Carrara, Italy
With the Martha Graham Dance CompanyIn Which Helen Puts to Rest the Mirror; What Helen Saw / What Helen Said; The Myth of W-a-t-e-r; Coda; In Terra Cotta; Acknowledgments; Biographical Note
Summary "The Myth of Water is a cycle of thirty-four poems by award-winning Alabama poet and writer Jeanie Thompson in the voice of world-renowned Alabamian Helen Keller. In their sweep, the poems trace Keller's metamorphosis from a native of a bucolic Alabama town to her emergence as a beloved, international figure who championed the rights of the deaf-blind worldwide. Thompson's artfully concatenated vignettes form a mosaic that maps the insightful mind behind the elegant and enigmatic persona Keller projected. Thompson takes readers on the journey of Keller's life, from some of the thirty-seven countries she visited, including the British Isles, Europe, and Japan to the wellsprings of her emotional awakening and insight. The poems are paired with fascinating biographical anecdotes from Keller's life and samplings from her writing, which infuse the work with richly-rewarding biographical detail. The poems in The Myth of Water reveal the discerning subtlety, resiliency, and complexity of the person Thompson perceives Helen Keller to have been. Through a combination of natural intuition, manual signs, Braille alphabets, and lip reading, Keller came to grasp the revolving tapestry of the seasons and the infinite colors of human relationships. Not a biography or a fictional retelling, The Myth of Water attempts to unlock what moved Keller to her life of service and self-examination. This is a deeply personal story of coming through--not overcoming--a double disability to a fully realized life in which a woman gives her heart to the world."-- Provided by publisher
"A collection of personal poems in the voice of Helen Keller. The poems included in this collection struggle with the humanity behind the name Helen Keller and serve to dramatically portray the person Thompson perceives Helen Keller to be. The poetry takes on many approaches, and as such these poems are based in documented fact filtered through distillations of reading and impressions. Some are fantasies of how Helen might have felt or thought, or how she responded as a woman in a particular circumstance. Thompson hopes, with these poems, to give a sense of Helen's simple humanity and great heart and that they will bring more people to appreciate Helen Keller, a woman who sought justice above all else"-- Provided by publisher
Notes Print version record
Subject Keller, Helen, 1880-1968 -- Poetry
SUBJECT Keller, Helen, 1880-1968 fast
Subject American poetry -- 21st century.
POETRY -- American -- General.
American poetry
Genre/Form Poetry
Form Electronic book
ISBN 9780817389925
081738992X
Other Titles Poems. Selections