Why do dolls compel us so much? What are their meanings? What lessons do they have to teach us? The Doll Collection explores these questions. This wonderful anthology of poems asks us to rethink dolls. Not just toys, dolls signify much more than childhood. Dolls shape our thinking about the female body, about race and class. Dolls influence our understanding of childhood. Symbols of perfection, they both comfort and terrify. Dolls represent, as Freud would say, the "uncanny." They are replicas, simulacra, souvenirs and secrets. They are objects we recall with intense nostalgia but also bodies we dismember and destroy. They might be made of cornhusks, clay, rags, paper, cloth, wood, porcelain, celluloid, bisque, plastic, or metal. For centuries, dolls have taught us how to understand our world and are windows to other worlds. Dolls are portals to our pasts and to ourselves. Dolls open the doors to our imagination. (from the Introduction, by Nicole Cooley)
The Doll Collection, the first anthology to focus on dolls, includes 88 poems by such poets as Michael Waters, Cecilia Woloch, Alice Friman, Lee Upton, Chana Bloch, Kelly Cherry, and Jeffrey Harrison.
Author Biography:
Diane Lockward is the author of The Crafty Poet: A Portable Workshop and four poetry books, most recently The Uneaten Carrots of Atonement. She is the recipient of the Quentin R. Howard Poetry Prize, a poetry fellowship from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, and a Woman of Achievement Award. Her poems have appeared in Harvard Review, Southern Poetry Review, Prairie Schooner, and elsewhere. Her work has also been featured on Poetry Daily, Verse Daily, and The Writer's Almanac.
