Distributed for Omnidawn Publishing, Inc.
Oyster Saloon
Poetry that considers art, family history, and creativity.
This collection charts the life of an artist and her passion for nature through the making of a painting. Poems revel in the space humans occupy within the natural world, considering ways of living that range from harmonious to extractive. Alvarez reflects on petroleum, plastic, robots, monsters, and a swath of art history and family history—from her Latino father’s time working as an artist in Andy Warhol’s Factory to the teachings of Hokusai. Acting asa séance conjuring the voices of the dead as a guide, the book is part elegy to the poet’s mother, who was a painter and gardener. Steeped in the rural New England countryside of the poet’s childhood and the lore of her indigenous ancestral family in Puerto Rico and Mexico, Oyster Saloon straddles contrasting heritage and landscapes and considers what it means to live a creative life.
Reviews
Table of Contents
Blue Horse Torso, gouache on paper
Inventory of Beauty
Design for the Lid of Pandora’s Box
Spiral Flying of Angels
Whale Girl, ink on paper
Visiting Hours
Illusions of Intimacy
Areíto with Mi Abuela
Mirror Stage
Séance with Hokusai
Luminous
Artemis, ink and gouache on paper
Daisy Chain Elegy
Hibernaculum
Woman in the Woods
How Freedom, ink on paper
Bedroom at the End of the World
In the Painting of How it Used to Be
Eyes of Shell
Guabancex
Mother River
Arachne, ink on paper
Lake of the Dog
The Day at the Fisherman’s House
Flor de Corazón
Botanical Drawing of Colonialism
Song of the Lady Slipper’s Ghost
Séance with Lady Slippers, ink on paper
Concert of Forgiveness
Picasso’s Pet Owl
Exhibit: Frankenstein
Gestalt
Ghost, ink on paper
The Robot Séance
View Show Date and Buy Tickets
Liquid to Solid Sofa Car Shoe Catheter
Dracula in the Parking Lot
Petroleum Dream Bubble
Traffic, drypoint and aquatint etching on paper
El Desierto
Dream Ballet
Trying to Paint My Mother
Wing Unfinished
American Bittersweet
Elegiac Almanac
Pollen Diagram of Haphazard Rapture
Familiar, gouache on paper
The Garden’s Pulse
Iridescence
Hurricane
Your Voice Is a Harvest Play Sung
on the Threshing Floor
Her Secret
Inspiration
Pack of Shadows, ink on paper
Maned Wolf Breeding Program
Some New England Walls
The Land
Legacy as a Moving Turtle
Traveler, ink on paper
Refuge in the Spider’s Web
Ideal Bonfire
Tarquinia
Bell-Shaped Ancestor
Tree Cage, ink on paper
Red Mulberry Tree
Hunter’s Moon
Swoon
Tulip Tree Crown, gouache on paper
Acknowledgements