Distributed for Oberlin College Press
Chance Divine
Winner of the 2016 FIELD Poetry Prize Chance Divine explores the broadest territory possible, from the origins of the universe to the speculative, precarious future. Bookended by the dazzling prose poem sequences called “Genesis” and “Revelation,” Jeffrey Skinner’s new collection is equally grounded in the contemporary science of photons, black holes, and climate change and the uncanny mythology of celestial talk shows, shifting identities, angels, and politicians. Visionary, wildly unpredictable, and often unsettlingly funny, this is a book that matters.
Table of Contents
1. Genesis • 2. Alien Valley • Full Size Rendering • The Bookshelf of the God of Infinite Space • Jenny, Maybe • Six Beginnings to a Poem for [shah-day] • Women • When We’re Done Writing About the Self • Let’s Say in a Room by Yourself You Turn Slowly • So Say We All • Lots of Interest • The Deal • Anesthesia • Aphoristica • B-B-B-B-B-B-Books • Dinghy • The Flood • Another Brooklyn Reading • The Monster • To Do • The Idea of Jane at Key West • Distant Wants • Moral • Wanting • Tintinnabula • A Birth • Superman Attempts Rescue of Philosophical Dilemma, Fails • A Life of the Mind • The Playwright • Works • My Belle Epoch • The Speech • The Body Is Necessary But Not Sufficient • Sick Child in Midwinter • Soldiers & Dinosaurs on the Kitchen Floor • O Death • The Eschatologist Dreams His Children Going In and Out of Many Rooms • Icon • Terrors of the Night • Alien Valley • 3. Revelation • Notes • Acknowledgments