Camera Lyrica
Amy Newman
1999 Beatrice Hawley Award
“No matter how intricate, uncomfortable, or orphic her subject, Newman’s camera never flinches from her duty; her eye never shudders, except in rapture and that is to be forgiven, or rather, rewarded. In a time where bland, prosaic poetry has become the norm, and self-centered confessionalism the standard fare, how refreshing it is to read and experience these crafted, abundant, lyrical poems, these panoramic snapshots of enduring historical and social commentary.” "Newman's genius is of a particular and
urgent understanding: i.e. that we are summoned, by Nature and by Language, not
merely to continue but to begin worlds. Thus, beautifully, she avows the
extraordinariness of everything seen, avowing equally the tender newborn flesh of
everything said. The Eden of her alphabet is new, is open." "Camera
Lyrica confirms Amy Newman’s status
as one of the most important and exciting poets to have emerged during the last decade.
Haunting, prophetic, wise, these poems offer enormous satisfactions: an exquisite,
Stevensian music, an anthology of uncanny structures (especially in ‘A Note on the
Type’ & the ‘Interior’ sequence), and an uncompromising intelligence.
‘Not history’s likeness but the very thing,’ the poet writes. Reading this
book, one agrees emphatically: it is the very rare, real thing." "Amy Newman is a writer’s writer with a love of history and its incongruities. If one of her poems
were a bird, a specimen Darwin or Audubon might study, it would reveal the complex bone
structure of her syntax, the prehensile reach for elusive meaning, the layers of
awareness—all the things that give it flight, the moving parts in accord. Like the
naturalists who interest her, Newman explores affinities, but between categories and
across time. In Camera Lyrica, surface and depth stand juxtaposed. Newman’s scrupulous eye captures the fleeting and the enduring in language that is both sumptuous and rigorous. This is an intelligent and
rewarding second collection." Author photo by Joe Bonomo
—American Oral
—Donald Revell
—Tom Andrews
—Barbara Jordan
about the author
Amy Newman is currently an Assistant Professor at Northern Illinois University. She holds
a Ph.D. in English Literature and Language. Newman's first book, Order, or Disorder,
received the Cleveland State University Poetry Center Prize in 1995. She has received
fellowships in poetry from the Ohio and Illinois Arts Councils, and her work has been
nominated for Pushcart Prizes. Her poems appear in such journals as The Ohio Review,
Colorado Review, Denver Quarterly, The Gettysburg Review, Hayden's Ferry Review, Willow
Springs, Indiana Review, The Carolina Quarterly, The Connecticut Poetry Review, and
elsewhere.
